Location based sidelink (SL) hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback transmission

ABSTRACT

A process for performing a sidelink (SL) communication includes determining a configuration, for a communication zone of a set of communication zones, the configuration being indicative of at least one a resource configuration or at least one signaling configuration for a communication of data. The process includes generating SL control information (SCI) that indicates a transmitter (TX) location based on the configuration of the communication zone of the set of communication zones. The process includes communicating the SCI indicating the TX location.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationNo. 62/874,423, titled LOCATION BASED SIDELINK (SL) HYBRID AUTOMATICREPEAT REQUEST (HARQ) FEEDBACK TRANSMISSION, filed Jul. 15, 2019, theentire content of which is incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure relates generally to timing adjustment of uplinktransmissions in wireless communications.

BACKGROUND

Wireless communication systems are rapidly growing in usage. Further,wireless communication technology has evolved from voice-onlycommunications to also include the transmission of data, such asInternet and multimedia content, to a variety of devices. To accommodatea growing number of devices communicating both voice and data signals,many wireless communication systems share the available communicationchannel resources among devices.

SUMMARY

This specification describes processes to enable location based sidelink(SL) feedback transmission, such as by user equipment (UE). For newradio (NR) SL communication in the third generation partnership project(3GPP), hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) options are supported forSL groupcast in two forms. First, a negative acknowledgment (NACK) onlyfeedback option is supported. Second, a positive acknowledgment (ACK) orNACK feedback option is supported. For SL groupcast with NACK onlyfeedback, a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) receiver (RX) user equipment(UE) is configured to determine whether to send no HARQ feedback, eventhough the V2X RX UE is configured (e.g., generally preconfigured) tosend HARQ feedback.

Enabling the V2X RX UE to determine whether or not to send HARQ feedbackcan include one or more advantages. For example, if a UE determines notto send HARQ feedback, channel congestion is reduced. In someimplementations, the criteria according to which the V2X RX UE can makea decision about transmission of HARQ feedback can be based on areference signal received power (RSRP) at the RX UE, a distance betweentransmitter (TX) UEs and RX UEs, or a combination of the distance andthe RSRP. Specifically, distance-based HARQ feedback can be a goodoption for scenarios in which UEs, that are physically close to eachother and that are blocked by blockers, may have a very short radiodistance. Such functionality yields additional overhead becauseposition-related information are transmitted to the RX UE. Therefore, itis beneficial that both RSRP-based HARQ feedback and distance-based HARQfeedback are supported and pre-configured, as RSRP-based feedback can beused without this overhead. Furthermore, a network device (e.g., a nodesuch as a gNB) pre-configures a UE to use both RSRP and distance to makea decision about transmission of HARQ feedback. This pre-configurationcan allow the UE to skip HARQ feedback transmission when both criteria,including a distance criterion and an RSRP criterion, are not met.

The one or more advantage can be enabled by at least one or more of thefollowing embodiments.

In an aspect process for performing a sidelink (SL) communicationbetween a next generation node (gNB) and user equipment (UE) includesdetermining a configuration, for a communication zone of a set ofcommunication zones, the configuration being indicative of at least onea resource configuration or at least one signaling configuration for acommunication of data. The process includes generating SL controlinformation (SCI) that indicates a transmitter (TX) location based onthe configuration of the communication zone of the set of communicationzones. The process includes communicating the SCI indicating the TXlocation.

In some implementations, the communication zone is configured to avehicle to everything (V2X) UE, and wherein different zoneconfigurations indicate different resource configurations including theat least one resource configuration or different signalingconfigurations including the at least one signaling configuration. Insome implementations, a radio resource control (RRC) information element(IE) is configured in an SL-V2X-physical sidelink control channel(PSCCH) configuration IE that indicates a number of communication zonesof the set of communication zones and an SCI field indicating a TXlocation for each communication zone of the set of communication zones.

In some implementations, the SL-V2X-PSCCH configuration IE defines anRRC IE for all available RRC configuration parameters. In someimplementations, the RRC IE defines an SCI field for signaling the TXlocation. In some implementations, when the RCC IE defines a singlecommunication zone, the SCI field indicates a zone index based on theconfiguration for the communication zone. In some implementations, whenthe RCC IE defines a plurality of communication zones, the SCI fieldindicates all zone indices associated with a list of zoneconfigurations, wherein a length of the SCI filed is based on the zoneconfigurations of the list of zone configurations. In someimplementations, the TX location is indicated with a configurable areagranularity.

In some implementations, the process includes decoding, by a V2Xreceiver (RX) UE, the SCI indicating the TX location. The processincludes determining a location of the V2X RX UE. The process includesdetermining, based on the location and the TX location, atransmitter-receiver (TX-RX) distance. In some implementations, theTX-RX distance is a function of a distance between a geometry center ofthe communication zone and the V2X RX UE location.

In some implementations, the process is performed by a network element,a UE, or base station, such as a next generation node (gNB). In someimplementations, one or more non-transitory computer readable mediastore instructions that when executed by at least one processing devicecause the at least one processing device (or another device incommunication with the at least one processing device) to perform theprocess.

In a general aspect, a process for location-based sidelink (SL) hybridautomatic repeat request (HARQ) transmission in a new radio (NR)communications system includes determining a plurality of communicationconfigurations for a communication zone associated with a user equipment(UE). In some implementations, the communication zone is used for SLcommunications and wherein at least two configurations of the pluralityof configurations differ from each other. The process includesdetermining a hierarchical zone structure for the communication zonebased on the plurality of configurations. In some implementations, thehierarchical zone structure organizes the communication zone into afirst communication zone and a plurality of second communication zones.In some implementations, the first communication zone is larger thaneach of the plurality of second communication zones. In someimplementations, the first communication zone comprises the plurality ofsecond communication zones.

In some implementations, the process includes determining a transmitter(TX) resource pool configuration or a receiver (RX) resource poolconfiguration based on one of the plurality of configurations that isassociated with the first communication zone.

In some implementations, the process includes assigning a first radioresource to a first one of the plurality of second communication zonesand a second radio resource to a second one of the plurality of secondcommunication zones based on the TX resource pool configuration or theRX resource pool configuration, the first radio resource being differentthan the second radio resource. In some implementations, the first oneof the plurality of second communication zones is adjacent the secondone of the plurality of second communication zones.

In some implementations, the process includes determining a location ofa transmitter (TX) or a location of a receiver (RX) based on one of theplurality of zone configurations that is associated with one or more ofthe plurality of second communication zones.

In some implementations, the process includes communicating the locationof the TX or the location of the RX to another device.

In some implementations, the process is performed by a network element,a UE, or base station, such as a next generation node (gNB). In someimplementations, one or more non-transitory computer readable mediastore instructions that when executed by at least one processing devicecause the at least one processing device (or another device incommunication with the at least one processing device) to perform theprocess.

In a general aspect, a process for location-based sidelink (SL) hybridautomatic repeat request (HARQ) transmission in a new radio (NR)communications system includes determining one or more configurationsfor one or more communication zones for SL communications. In someimplementations, the process includes determining a location of a userequipment (UE) based on the one or more configurations. In someimplementations, the process includes generating SL control information(SCI), the SCI comprising the location of the UE. In someimplementations, the process includes communicating the SCI to anotherdevice.

In some implementations, generating the SCI comprises configuring aradio resource parameter to include information indicative of thelocation of the UE.

In some implementations, the process includes receiving, by a first UE,the SCI that includes a location of a second UE, the second UE being theUE and being different than the first UE, wherein the one or moreconfigurations for the one or more communication zones are associatedwith the first UE. In some implementations, the process includesdecoding, by the first UE, the SCI based on a location of the first UE.In some implementations, the process includes determining, by the firstUE, a distance between the first UE and the second UE based on thelocation of the first UE and the location of the second UE.

In some implementations, the first UE includes vehicle-to-everything(V2X) receiver (RX) UE and the second UE includes a V2X TX UE. In someimplementations, determining, by the first UE, a distance between thefirst UE and the second UE comprises determining by the first UE, aminimum distance between the first UE and the second UE.

In some implementations, the process is performed by a network element,a UE, or base station, such as a next generation node (gNB). In someimplementations, one or more non-transitory computer readable mediastore instructions that when executed by at least one processing devicecause the at least one processing device (or another device incommunication with the at least one processing device) to perform theprocess.

The details of one or more implementations are set forth in theaccompanying drawings and the description below. Other features andadvantages will be apparent from the description and drawings, and fromthe claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an example wireless communication system, accordingto various embodiments herein.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of infrastructure equipment, according tovarious embodiments herein.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a platform or device, according tovarious embodiments herein.

FIG. 4 illustrates example components of baseband circuitry and radiofront end circuitry, according to various embodiments herein.

FIG. 5 illustrates example protocol functions that may be implemented inan example wireless communication system, according to variousembodiments herein.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example system to support network functionvirtualization, according to various embodiments herein.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example computer system, according to variousembodiments herein.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a hierarchical zone setup for resourceor signaling configuration for transmissions to or from a UE, accordingto various embodiments herein.

FIG. 9 shows an example of transmitter/receiver distance calculationbased on a received transmitter location in SL control information(SCI), according to various embodiments herein.

FIGS. 10-12 show example processes for location-based SL hybridautomatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback transmission by a UE, accordingto various embodiments herein.

Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like elements,according to various embodiments herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

This specification describes processes to enable location based sidelink(SL) feedback transmission, such as by user equipment (UE). For newradio (NR) SL communication in the third generation partnership project(3GPP), hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) options are supported forSL groupcast in two forms. First, a negative acknowledgment (NACK) onlyfeedback option is supported. Second, a positive acknowledgment (ACK) orNACK feedback option is supported. For SL groupcast with NACK onlyfeedback, a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) receiver (RX) user equipment(UE) is configured to determine whether to send no HARQ feedback, eventhough the V2X RX UE is configured (e.g., generally preconfigured) tosend HARQ feedback. These processes can be used with the Radio ResourceControl (RRC) protocols described in the 3GPP TS 36.331 version 15.4.0(Release 15), published in April 2019.

Enabling the V2X RX UE to determine whether or not to send HARQ feedbackcan include one or more advantages. For example, if a UE determines notto send HARQ feedback, channel congestion is reduced. In someimplementations, the criteria according to which the V2X RX UE can makea decision about transmission of HARQ feedback can be based on areference signal received power (RSRP) at the RX UE, a distance betweentransmitter (TX) UEs and RX UEs, or a combination of the distance andthe RSRP. Specifically, distance-based HARQ feedback can be a goodoption for scenarios in which UEs, that are physically close to eachother and that are blocked by blockers, may have a very short radiodistance. Such functionality yields additional overhead becauseposition-related information are transmitted to the RX UE. Therefore, itis beneficial that both RSRP-based HARQ feedback and distance-based HARQfeedback are supported and pre-configured, as RSRP-based feedback can beused without this overhead. Furthermore, a network device (e.g., a nodesuch as a gNB) pre-configures a UE to use both RSRP and distance to makea decision about transmission of HARQ feedback. This pre-configurationcan allow the UE to skip HARQ feedback transmission when both criteria,including a distance criterion and an RSRP criterion, are not met.

For a transmitter-receiver (TX-RX) distance-based HARQ feedback forgroupcast, a UE transmits HARQ feedback for a physical SL shared channel(PSSCH) if the TX-RX distance is equal to or less than a communicationrange requirement. Otherwise, the UE does not transmit HARQ feedback forthe PSSCH. Additionally, the transmitter (TX) UE's location is indicatedby SL control information (SCI) associated with the PSSCH. Thisspecification describes how a TX location can be defined and signaled inSCI. This specification describes how a TX-RX distance is estimated by areceiver (RX) UE based on the RX UE's location and the TX UE's location.This specification describes how a communication range requirement for aPSSCH is known after decoding an SCI associated with the PSSCH. Thisspecification describes in which circumstances a communication rangerequirement is signaled implicitly or explicitly.

The embodiments that are subsequently described define a genericframework for communication zone definitions. Different zoneconfigurations, each including a particular definition of communicationparameters for that zone, can be used for different resource/signalingconfigurations so that overall signaling overhead can be optimizedaccording to the actual system needs. The embodiments subsequentlydescribed are directed to enabling a vehicle to everything (V2X) TX UEto signal a TX location and enabling a RX UE to determine a TX to RXdistance for HARQ feedback in SL groupcast communications.

An embodiment for defining the framework for communication zonedefinitions includes a zone set configuration. A set of zoneconfigurations, each including particular communication parameters forresource and signaling, are configured (e.g., preconfigured) to a V2X UEso that different zone configurations can be used for different resourceand/or signaling configurations. Specifically, a hierarchical zonestructure consisting of zones of different sizes are realized by the setof zone configurations. In an embodiment, one zone configuration with arelatively large zone size can be used for transmitter/receiver (TX/RX)resource pool configurations so that neighboring zones use differentradio resources to avoid x-zone interferences. Additionally, anotherzone configuration with a relatively smaller zone size can be used forsignaling and determining a TX/RX location with a relatively smallerlocation granularity than the location granularity for a relativelylarger zone size.

An embodiment includes transmitter location signaling (e.g., by a UE) inthe SCI. The transmitter location can be signaled in SCI by virtue of aconfigured zone or a configured set of zones for SL communications.Specifically, a radio resource control (RRC) parameter, namelytxLocationZoneSCIConfig, can be (pre)configured in SL-V2X-PSCCHConfig.By virtue of the txLocationSCIConfig parameter, the TX location can besignaled with configurable area granularity based on system needs. Whena V2X RX UE decodes the received SCI including the TX-location field,based on its own location, an RX UE can calculate the TX-RX distancebased on a minimum distance between the signaled TX location and the RXUE's location(s).

The embodiments described herein define a generic framework forcommunication zone definitions. Moreover, different zone configurationscan be used for different resource/signaling configurations so thatoverall signaling overhead can be optimized according to the actualneeds.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example wireless communication system 100. Forpurposes of convenience and without limitation, the example system 100is described in the context of the LTE and 5G NR communication standardsas defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) technicalspecifications. More specifically, the wireless communication system 100is described in the context of a Non-Standalone (NSA) networks thatincorporate both LTE and NR, for example, E-UTRA (Evolved UniversalTerrestrial Radio Access)-NR Dual Connectivity (EN-DC) networks, andNE-DC networks. However, the wireless communication system 100 may alsobe a Standalone (SA) network that incorporates only NR. Furthermore,other types of communication standards are possible, including future3GPP systems (e.g., Sixth Generation (6G)) systems, IEEE 802.16protocols (e.g., WMAN, WiMAX, etc.), or the like.

The system 100 includes UE 101 a and UE 101 b (collectively referred toas the “UEs 101”). In this example, the UEs 101 are illustrated assmartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computing devicesconnectable to one or more cellular networks). In other examples, any ofthe UEs 101 may include other mobile or non-mobile computing devices,such as consumer electronics devices, cellular phones, smartphones,feature phones, tablet computers, wearable computer devices, personaldigital assistants (PDAs), pagers, wireless handsets, desktop computers,laptop computers, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), in-car entertainment(ICE) devices, an Instrument Cluster (IC), head-up display (HUD)devices, onboard diagnostic (OBD) devices, dashtop mobile equipment(DME), mobile data terminals (MDTs), Electronic Engine Management System(EEMS), electronic/engine control units (ECUs), electronic/enginecontrol modules (ECMs), embedded systems, microcontrollers, controlmodules, engine management systems (EMS), networked or “smart”appliances, machine-type communications (MTC) devices,machine-to-machine (M2M) devices, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, orcombinations of them, among others.

In some examples, any of the UEs 101 may be IoT UEs, which can include anetwork access layer designed for low-power IoT applications utilizingshort-lived UE connections. An IoT UE can utilize technologies such asM2M or MTC for exchanging data with an MTC server or device using, forexample, a public land mobile network (PLMN), proximity services(ProSe), device-to-device (D2D) communication, sensor networks, IoTnetworks, or combinations of them, among others. The M2M or MTC exchangeof data may be a machine-initiated exchange of data. An IoT networkdescribes interconnecting IoT UEs, which may include uniquelyidentifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internetinfrastructure), with short-lived connections. The IoT UEs may executebackground applications (e.g., keep-alive messages or status updates) tofacilitate the connections of the IoT network.

The UEs 101 are configured to connect (e.g., communicatively couple)with an access network (AN) or radio access network (RAN) 110. In someexamples, the RAN 110 may be a next generation RAN (NG RAN), an evolvedUMTS terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN), or a legacy RAN, suchas a UMTS terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) or a GSM EDGE radioaccess network (GERAN). As used herein, the term “NG RAN” may refer to aRAN 110 that operates in a 5G NR system 100, and the term “E-UTRAN” mayrefer to a RAN 110 that operates in an LTE or 4G system 100.

To connect to the RAN 110, the UEs 101 utilize connections (or channels)103 and 104, respectively, each of which may include a physicalcommunications interface or layer, as described below. In this example,the connections 103 and 104 are illustrated as an air interface toenable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellularcommunications protocols, such as a global system for mobilecommunications (GSM) protocol, a code-division multiple access (CDMA)network protocol, a push-to-talk (PTT) protocol, a PTT over cellular(POC) protocol, a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS)protocol, a 3GPP LTE protocol, a 5G NR protocol, or combinations ofthem, among other communication protocols. In some examples, the UEs 101may directly exchange communication data using an interface 105, such asa ProSe interface. The interface 105 may alternatively be referred to asa sidelink interface 105 and may include one or more logical channels,such as a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH), a physical sidelinkshared channel (PSSCH), a physical sidelink downlink channel (PSDCH), ora physical sidelink broadcast channel (PSBCH), or combinations of them,among others.

The UE 101 b is shown to be configured to access an access point (AP)106 (also referred to as “WLAN node 106,” “WLAN 106,” “WLAN Termination106,” “WT 106” or the like) using a connection 107. The connection 107can include a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistentwith any IEEE 802.11 protocol, in which the AP 106 would include awireless fidelity (Wi-Fi®) router. In this example, the AP 106 is shownto be connected to the Internet without connecting to the core networkof the wireless system, as described in further detail below. In variousexamples, the UE 101 b, RAN 110, and AP 106 may be configured to useLTE-WLAN aggregation (LWA) operation or LTW/WLAN radio level integrationwith IPsec tunnel (LWIP) operation. The LWA operation may involve the UE101 b in RRC_CONNECTED being configured by a RAN node 111 a, 111 b toutilize radio resources of LTE and WLAN. LWIP operation may involve theUE 101 b using WLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 107) using IPsecprotocol tunneling to authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., IPpackets) sent over the connection 107. IPsec tunneling may includeencapsulating the entirety of original IP packets and adding a newpacket header, thereby protecting the original header of the IP packets.

The RAN 110 can include one or more AN nodes or RAN nodes 111 a and 111b (collectively referred to as “RAN nodes 111” or “RAN node 111”) thatenable the connections 103 and 104. As used herein, the terms “accessnode,” “access point,” or the like may describe equipment that providesthe radio baseband functions for data or voice connectivity, or both,between a network and one or more users. These access nodes can bereferred to as base stations (BS), gNodeBs, gNBs, eNodeBs, eNBs, NodeBs,RAN nodes, rode side units (RSUs), transmission reception points (TRxPsor TRPs), and the link, and can include ground stations (e.g.,terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providing coveragewithin a geographic area (e.g., a cell), among others. As used herein,the term “NG RAN node” may refer to a RAN node 111 that operates in an5G NR system 100 (for example, a gNB), and the term “E-UTRAN node” mayrefer to a RAN node 111 that operates in an LTE or 4G system 100 (e.g.,an eNB). In some examples, the RAN nodes 111 may be implemented as oneor more of a dedicated physical device such as a macrocell base station,or a low power (LP) base station for providing femtocells, picocells orother like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity,or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells.

In some examples, some or all of the RAN nodes 111 may be implemented asone or more software entities running on server computers as part of avirtual network, which may be referred to as a cloud RAN (CRAN) or avirtual baseband unit pool (vBBUP). The CRAN or vBBUP may implement aRAN function split, such as a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP)split in which radio resource control (RRC) and PDCP layers are operatedby the CRAN/vBBUP and other layer two (e.g., data link layer) protocolentities are operated by individual RAN nodes 111; a medium accesscontrol (MAC)/physical layer (PHY) split in which RRC, PDCP, MAC, andradio link control (RLC) layers are operated by the CRAN/vBBUP and thePHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes 111; or a “lower PHY”split in which RRC, PDCP, RLC, and MAC layers and upper portions of thePHY layer are operated by the CRAN/vBBUP and lower portions of the PHYlayer are operated by individual RAN nodes 111. This virtualizedframework allows the freed-up processor cores of the RAN nodes 111 toperform, for example, other virtualized applications. In some examples,an individual RAN node 111 may represent individual gNB distributedunits (DUs) that are connected to a gNB central unit (CU) usingindividual F1 interfaces (not shown in FIG. 1 ). In some examples, thegNB-DUs may include one or more remote radio heads or RFEMs (see, e.g.,FIG. 2 ), and the gNB-CU may be operated by a server that is located inthe RAN 110 (not shown) or by a server pool in a similar manner as theCRAN/vBBUP. Additionally or alternatively, one or more of the RAN nodes111 may be next generation eNBs (ng-eNBs), including RAN nodes thatprovide E-UTRA user plane and control plane protocol terminations towardthe UEs 101, and are connected to a 5G core network (e.g., core network120) using a next generation interface.

In vehicle-to-everything (V2X) scenarios, one or more of the RAN nodes111 may be or act as RSUs. The term “Road Side Unit” or “RSU” refers toany transportation infrastructure entity used for V2X communications. ARSU may be implemented in or by a suitable RAN node or a stationary (orrelatively stationary) UE, where a RSU implemented in or by a UE may bereferred to as a “UE-type RSU,” a RSU implemented in or by an eNB may bereferred to as an “eNB-type RSU,” a RSU implemented in or by a gNB maybe referred to as a “gNB-type RSU,” and the like. In some examples, anRSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry locatedon a roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs101 (vUEs 101). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitryto store intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, as wellas applications or other software to sense and control ongoing vehicularand pedestrian traffic. The RSU may operate on the 5.9 GHz Direct ShortRange Communications (DSRC) band to provide very low latencycommunications required for high speed events, such as crash avoidance,traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSUmay operate on the cellular V2X band to provide the aforementioned lowlatency communications, as well as other cellular communicationsservices. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate as a Wi-Fihotspot (2.4 GHz band) or provide connectivity to one or more cellularnetworks to provide uplink and downlink communications, or both. Thecomputing device(s) and some or all of the radiofrequency circuitry ofthe RSU may be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoorinstallation, and may include a network interface controller to providea wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller or abackhaul network, or both.

Any of the RAN nodes 111 can terminate the air interface protocol andcan be the first point of contact for the UEs 101. In some examples, anyof the RAN nodes 111 can fulfill various logical functions for the RAN110 including, but not limited to, radio network controller (RNC)functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamicradio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobilitymanagement.

In some examples, the UEs 101 can be configured to communicate usingorthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication signalswith each other or with any of the RAN nodes 111 over a multicarriercommunication channel in accordance with various communicationtechniques, such as, but not limited to, OFDMA communication techniques(e.g., for downlink communications) or SC-FDMA communication techniques(e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications), although thescope of the techniques described here not limited in this respect. TheOFDM signals can comprise a plurality of orthogonal subcarriers.

In some examples, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlinktransmissions from any of the RAN nodes 111 to the UEs 101, while uplinktransmissions can utilize similar techniques. The grid can be atime-frequency grid, called a resource grid or time-frequency resourcegrid, which is the physical resource in the downlink in each slot. Sucha time-frequency plane representation is a common practice for OFDMsystems, which makes it intuitive for radio resource allocation. Eachcolumn and each row of the resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symboland one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource gridin the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radio frame. Thesmallest time-frequency unit in a resource grid is denoted as a resourceelement. Each resource grid comprises a number of resource blocks, whichdescribe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements.Each resource block comprises a collection of resource elements; in thefrequency domain, this may represent the smallest quantity of resourcesthat currently can be allocated. There are several different physicaldownlink channels that are conveyed using such resource blocks.

In some examples, the UEs 101 and the RAN nodes 111 communicate (e.g.,transmit and receive) data over a licensed medium (also referred to asthe “licensed spectrum” or the “licensed band”) and an unlicensed sharedmedium (also referred to as the “unlicensed spectrum” or the “unlicensedband”). The licensed spectrum may include channels that operate in thefrequency range of approximately 400 MHz to approximately 3.8 GHz,whereas the unlicensed spectrum may include the 5 GHz band. NR in theunlicensed spectrum may be referred to as NR-U, and LTE in an unlicensedspectrum may be referred to as LTE-U, licensed assisted access (LAA), orMulteFire.

To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the UEs 101 and the RAN nodes 111may operate using license assisted access (LAA), enhanced-LAA (eLAA), orfurther enhanced-LAA (feLAA) mechanisms. In these implementations, theUEs 101 and the RAN nodes 111 may perform one or more knownmedium-sensing operations or carrier-sensing operations, or both, todetermine whether one or more channels in the unlicensed spectrum areunavailable or otherwise occupied prior to transmitting in theunlicensed spectrum. The medium/carrier sensing operations may beperformed according to a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol. LBT is amechanism in which equipment (for example, UEs 101, RAN nodes 111)senses a medium (for example, a channel or carrier frequency) andtransmits when the medium is sensed to be idle (or when a specificchannel in the medium is sensed to be unoccupied). The medium sensingoperation may include clear channel assessment (CCA), which uses energydetection to determine the presence or absence of other signals on achannel in order to determine if a channel is occupied or clear. ThisLBT mechanism allows cellular/LAA networks to coexist with incumbentsystems in the unlicensed spectrum and with other LAA networks. Energydetection may include sensing RF energy across an intended transmissionband for a period of time and comparing the sensed RF energy to apredefined or configured threshold.

The incumbent systems in the 5 GHz band can be WLANs based on IEEE802.11 technologies. WLAN employs a contention-based channel accessmechanism (e.g., CSMA with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA)). In someexamples, when a WLAN node (e.g., a mobile station (MS), such as UE 101,AP 106, or the like) intends to transmit, the WLAN node may firstperform CCA before transmission. Additionally, a backoff mechanism isused to avoid collisions in situations where more than one WLAN nodesenses the channel as idle and transmits at the same time. The backoffmechanism may be a counter that is drawn randomly within the contentionwindow size (CWS), which is increased exponentially upon the occurrenceof collision and reset to a minimum value as the transmission succeeds.In some examples, the LBT mechanism designed for LAA is similar to theCSMA/CA of WLAN. In some examples, the LBT procedure for DL or ULtransmission bursts, including PDSCH or PUSCH transmissions,respectively, may have an LAA contention window that is variable inlength between X and Y extended CAA (ECCA) slots, where X and Y areminimum and maximum values for the CWSs for LAA. In one example, theminimum CWS for an LAA transmission may be 9 microseconds (μs); however,the size of the CWS and a maximum channel occupancy time (for example, atransmission burst) may be based on governmental regulatoryrequirements.

In some examples, the LAA mechanisms are built on carrier aggregationtechnologies of LTE-Advanced systems. In CA, each aggregated carrier isreferred to as a component carrier. In some examples, a componentcarrier may have a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 or 20 MHz, and amaximum of five component carriers can be aggregated to provide amaximum aggregated bandwidth is 100 MHz. In frequency division duplex(FDD) systems, the number of aggregated carriers can be different for DLand UL. For example, the number of UL component carriers can be equal toor lower than the number of DL component carriers. In some cases,individual component carriers can have a different bandwidth than othercomponent carriers. In time division duplex (TDD) systems, the number ofcomponent carriers as well as the bandwidths of each component carrieris usually the same for DL and UL.

Carrier aggregation can also include individual serving cells to provideindividual component carriers. The coverage of the serving cells maydiffer, for example, because component carriers on different frequencybands may experience different path loss. A primary service cell (PCell)may provide a primary component carrier for both UL and DL, and mayhandle RRC and non-access stratum (NAS) related activities. The otherserving cells are referred to as secondary component carriers (SCells),and each SCell may provide an individual secondary component carrier forboth UL and DL. The secondary component carriers may be added andremoved as required, while changing the primary component carrier mayrequire the UE 101 to undergo a handover. In LAA, eLAA, and feLAA, someor all of the SCells may operate in the unlicensed spectrum (referred toas “LAA SCells”), and the LAA SCells are assisted by a PCell operatingin the licensed spectrum. When a UE is configured with more than one LAASCell, the UE may receive UL grants on the configured LAA SCellsindicating different PUSCH starting positions within a same subframe.

The PDSCH carries user data and higher-layer signaling to the UEs 101.The PDCCH carries information about the transport format and resourceallocations related to the PDSCH channel, among other things. It mayalso inform the UEs 101 about the transport format, resource allocation,and hybrid automatic repeat request (HARD) information related to theuplink shared channel. Downlink scheduling (e.g., assigning control andshared channel resource blocks to the UE 101 b within a cell) may beperformed at any of the RAN nodes 111 based on channel qualityinformation fed back from any of the UEs 101. The downlink resourceassignment information may be sent on the PDCCH used for (e.g., assignedto) each of the UEs 101.

The PDCCH uses control channel elements (CCEs) to convey the controlinformation. Before being mapped to resource elements, the PDCCHcomplex-valued symbols may first be organized into quadruplets, whichmay then be permuted using a sub-block interleaver for rate matching. Insome examples, each PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more of theseCCEs, in which each CCE may correspond to nine sets of four physicalresource elements collectively referred to as resource element groups(REGs). Four Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) symbols may be mappedto each REG. The PDCCH can be transmitted using one or more CCEs,depending on the size of the downlink control information (DCI) and thechannel condition. In LTE, there can be four or more different PDCCHformats defined with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation level,L=1, 2, 4, or 8).

Some implementations may use concepts for resource allocation forcontrol channel information that are an extension of the above-describedconcepts. For example, some implementations may utilize an enhancedPDCCH (EPDCCH) that uses PDSCH resources for control informationtransmission. The EPDCCH may be transmitted using one or more enhancedCCEs (ECCEs). Similar to above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets offour physical resource elements collectively referred to as an enhancedREG (EREG). An ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs in some examples.

The RAN nodes 111 are configured to communicate with one another usingan interface 112. In examples, such as where the system 100 is an LTEsystem (e.g., when the core network 120 is an evolved packet core (EPC)network), the interface 112 may be an X2 interface 112. The X2 interfacemay be defined between two or more RAN nodes 111 (e.g., two or more eNBsand the like) that connect to the EPC 120, or between two eNBsconnecting to EPC 120, or both. In some examples, the X2 interface mayinclude an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2 control planeinterface (X2-C). The X2-U may provide flow control mechanisms for userdata packets transferred over the X2 interface, and may be used tocommunicate information about the delivery of user data between eNBs.For example, the X2-U may provide specific sequence number informationfor user data transferred from a master eNB to a secondary eNB;information about successful in sequence delivery of PDCP protocol dataunits (PDUs) to a UE 101 from a secondary eNB for user data; informationof PDCP PDUs that were not delivered to a UE 101; information about acurrent minimum desired buffer size at the secondary eNB fortransmitting to the UE user data, among other information. The X2-C mayprovide intra-LTE access mobility functionality, including contexttransfers from source to target eNBs or user plane transport control;load management functionality; inter-cell interference coordinationfunctionality, among other functionality.

In some examples, such as where the system 100 is a 5G NR system (e.g.,when the core network 120 is a 5G core network), the interface 112 maybe an Xn interface 112. The Xn interface may be defined between two ormore RAN nodes 111 (e.g., two or more gNBs and the like) that connect tothe 5G core network 120, between a RAN node 111 (e.g., a gNB) connectingto the 5G core network 120 and an eNB, or between two eNBs connecting tothe 5G core network 120, or combinations of them. In some examples, theXn interface may include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xncontrol plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U may provide non-guaranteeddelivery of user plane PDUs and support/provide data forwarding and flowcontrol functionality. The Xn-C may provide management and errorhandling functionality, functionality to manage the Xn-C interface;mobility support for UE 101 in a connected mode (e.g., CM-CONNECTED)including functionality to manage the UE mobility for connected modebetween one or more RAN nodes 111, among other functionality. Themobility support may include context transfer from an old (source)serving RAN node 111 to new (target) serving RAN node 111, and controlof user plane tunnels between old (source) serving RAN node 111 to new(target) serving RAN node 111. A protocol stack of the Xn-U may includea transport network layer built on Internet Protocol (IP) transportlayer, and a GPRS tunneling protocol for user plane (GTP-U) layer on topof a user datagram protocol (UDP) or IP layer(s), or both, to carry userplane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stack may include an application layersignaling protocol (referred to as Xn Application Protocol (Xn-AP)) anda transport network layer that is built on a stream control transmissionprotocol (SCTP). The SCTP may be on top of an IP layer, and may providethe guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. In the transportIP layer, point-to-point transmission is used to deliver the signalingPDUs. In other implementations, the Xn-U protocol stack or the Xn-Cprotocol stack, or both, may be same or similar to the user plane and/orcontrol plane protocol stack(s) shown and described herein.

The RAN 110 is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network 120(referred to as a “CN 120”). The CN 120 includes one or more networkelements 122, which are configured to offer various data andtelecommunications services to customers/subscribers (e.g., users of UEs101) who are connected to the CN 120 using the RAN 110. The componentsof the CN 120 may be implemented in one physical node or separatephysical nodes and may include components to read and executeinstructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g.,a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some examples,network functions virtualization (NFV) may be used to virtualize some orall of the network node functions described here using executableinstructions stored in one or more computer-readable storage mediums, asdescribed in further detail below. A logical instantiation of the CN 120may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of aportion of the CN 120 may be referred to as a network sub-slice. NFVarchitectures and infrastructures may be used to virtualize one or morenetwork functions, alternatively performed by proprietary hardware, ontophysical resources comprising a combination of industry-standard serverhardware, storage hardware, or switches. In other words, NFV systems canbe used to execute virtual or reconfigurable implementations of one ormore network components or functions, or both.

Generally, an application server 130 may be an element offeringapplications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g.,UMTS packet services (PS) domain, LTE PS data services, among others).The application server 130 can also be configured to support one or morecommunication services (e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, groupcommunication sessions, social networking services, among others) forthe UEs 101 using the CN 120.

In some examples, the CN 120 may be a 5G core network (referred to as“5GC 120”), and the RAN 110 may be connected with the CN 120 using anext generation interface 113. In some examples, the next generationinterface 113 may be split into two parts, an next generation user plane(NG-U) interface 114, which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes111 and a user plane function (UPF), and the S1 control plane (NG-C)interface 115, which is a signaling interface between the RAN nodes 111and access and mobility management functions (AMFs).

In some examples, the CN 120 may be an EPC (referred to as “EPC 120” orthe like), and the RAN 110 may be connected with the CN 120 using an S1interface 113. In some examples, the S1 interface 113 may be split intotwo parts, an S1 user plane (S1-U) interface 114, which carries trafficdata between the RAN nodes 111 and the serving gateway (S-GW), and theS1-MME interface 115, which is a signaling interface between the RANnodes 111 and mobility management entities (MMEs).

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of infrastructure equipment 400. Theinfrastructure equipment 400 (or “system 400”) may be implemented as abase station, a radio head, a RAN node, such as the RAN nodes 111 or AP106 shown and described previously, an application server(s) 130, or anyother component or device described herein. In other examples, thesystem 400 can be implemented in or by a UE.

The system 400 includes application circuitry 405, baseband circuitry410, one or more radio front end modules (RFEMs) 415, memory circuitry420, power management integrated circuitry (PMIC) 425, power teecircuitry 430, network controller circuitry 435, network interfaceconnector 440, satellite positioning circuitry 445, and user interfacecircuitry 450. In some examples, the system 400 may include additionalelements such as, for example, memory, storage, a display, a camera, oneor more sensors, or an input/output (I/O) interface, or combinations ofthem, among others. In other examples, the components described withreference to the system 400 may be included in more than one device. Forexample, the various circuitries may be separately included in more thanone device for CRAN, vBBU, or other implementations.

The application circuitry 405 includes circuitry such as, but notlimited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory,one or more of low drop-out voltage regulators (LDOs), interruptcontrollers, serial interfaces such as SPI, I2C or universalprogrammable serial interface module, real time clock (RTC),timer-counters including interval and watchdog timers, general purposeinput/output (I/O or IO), memory card controllers such as Secure Digital(SD) MultiMediaCard (MMC) or similar, Universal Serial Bus (USB)interfaces, Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) interfaces andJoint Test Access Group (JTAG) test access ports. The processors (orcores) of the application circuitry 405 may be coupled with or mayinclude memory or storage elements and may be configured to executeinstructions stored in the memory or storage to enable variousapplications or operating systems to run on the system 400. In someexamples, the memory or storage elements may include on-chip memorycircuitry, which may include any suitable volatile or non-volatilememory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, Flash memory, solid-statememory, or combinations of them, among other types of memory.

The processor(s) of the application circuitry 405 may include, forexample, one or more processor cores (CPUs), one or more applicationprocessors, one or more graphics processing units (GPUs), one or morereduced instruction set computing (RISC) processors, one or more AcornRISC Machine (ARM) processors, one or more complex instruction setcomputing (CISC) processors, one or more digital signal processors(DSP), one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one ormore microprocessors or controllers, or combinations of them, amongothers. In some examples, the application circuitry 405 may include, ormay be, a special-purpose processor or controller configured to carryout the various techniques described here. As examples, the processor(s)of application circuitry 405 may include one or more Intel Pentium®,Core®, or Xeon® processor(s); Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen®processor(s), Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), or Epyc® processors;ARM-based processor(s) licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd. such as the ARMCortex-A family of processors and the ThunderX2® provided by Cavium™,Inc.; a MIPS-based design from MIPS Technologies, Inc. such as MIPSWarrior P-class processors; and/or the like. In some examples, thesystem 400 may not utilize application circuitry 405, and instead mayinclude a special-purpose processor or controller to process IP datareceived from an EPC or 5GC, for example.

In some examples, the application circuitry 405 may include one or morehardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmableprocessing devices, or the like. The one or more hardware acceleratorsmay include, for example, computer vision (CV) or deep learning (DL)accelerators, or both. In some examples, the programmable processingdevices may be one or more a field-programmable devices (FPDs) such asfield-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and the like; programmable logicdevices (PLDs) such as complex PLDs (CPLDs) or high-capacity PLDs(HCPLDs); ASICs such as structured ASICs; programmable SoCs (PSoCs), orcombinations of them, among others. In such implementations, thecircuitry of application circuitry 405 may include logic blocks or logicfabric, and other interconnected resources that may be programmed toperform various functions, such as the procedures, methods, functionsdescribed herein. In some examples, the circuitry of applicationcircuitry 405 may include memory cells (e.g., erasable programmableread-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-onlymemory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., static random accessmemory (SRAM) or anti-fuses)) used to store logic blocks, logic fabric,data, or other data in look-up-tables (LUTs) and the like.

The baseband circuitry 410 may be implemented, for example, as asolder-down substrate including one or more integrated circuits, asingle packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board or amulti-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Thevarious hardware electronic elements of baseband circuitry 410 arediscussed with regard to FIG. 4 .

The user interface circuitry 450 may include one or more user interfacesdesigned to enable user interaction with the system 400 or peripheralcomponent interfaces designed to enable peripheral component interactionwith the system 400. User interfaces may include, but are not limitedto, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), oneor more indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)), a physicalkeyboard or keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touchscreen, speakers orother audio emitting devices, microphones, a printer, a scanner, aheadset, a display screen or display device, or combinations of them,among others. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are notlimited to, a nonvolatile memory port, a universal serial bus (USB)port, an audio jack, a power supply interface, among others.

The radio front end modules (RFEMs) 415 may include a millimeter wave(mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-mmWave radio frequency integratedcircuits (RFICs). In some examples, the one or more sub-mmWave RFICs maybe physically separated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFICs may includeconnections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g.,antenna array 611 of FIG. 6 ), and the RFEM may be connected to multipleantennas. In some examples, both mmWave and sub-mmWave radio functionsmay be implemented in the same physical RFEM 415, which incorporatesboth mmWave antennas and sub-mmWave.

The memory circuitry 420 may include one or more of volatile memory,such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM) or synchronous dynamicrandom access memory (SDRAM), and nonvolatile memory (NVM), such ashigh-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as Flashmemory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), or magnetoresistiverandom access memory (MRAM), or combinations of them, among others. Insome examples, the memory circuitry 420 may include three-dimensional(3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memories from Intel® and Micron®. Memorycircuitry 420 may be implemented as one or more of solder down packagedintegrated circuits, socketed memory modules and plug-in memory cards,for example.

The PMIC 425 may include voltage regulators, surge protectors, poweralarm detection circuitry, and one or more backup power sources such asa battery or capacitor. The power alarm detection circuitry may detectone or more of brown out (under-voltage) and surge (over-voltage)conditions. The power tee circuitry 430 may provide for electrical powerdrawn from a network cable to provide both power supply and dataconnectivity to the infrastructure equipment 400 using a single cable.

The network controller circuitry 435 may provide connectivity to anetwork using a standard network interface protocol such as Ethernet,Ethernet over GRE Tunnels, Ethernet over Multiprotocol Label Switching(MPLS), or some other suitable protocol. Network connectivity may beprovided to and from the infrastructure equipment 400 using networkinterface connector 440 using a physical connection, which may beelectrical (commonly referred to as a “copper interconnect”), optical,or wireless. The network controller circuitry 435 may include one ormore dedicated processors or FPGAs, or both, to communicate using one ormore of the aforementioned protocols. In some examples, the networkcontroller circuitry 435 may include multiple controllers to provideconnectivity to other networks using the same or different protocols.

The positioning circuitry 445 includes circuitry to receive and decodesignals transmitted or broadcasted by a positioning network of a globalnavigation satellite system (GNSS). Examples of a GNSS include UnitedStates' Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's Global NavigationSystem (GLONASS), the European Union's Galileo system, China's BeiDouNavigation Satellite System, a regional navigation system or GNSSaugmentation system (e.g., Navigation with Indian Constellation (NAVIC),Japan's Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), France's DopplerOrbitography and Radio-positioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS)),among other systems. The positioning circuitry 445 can include varioushardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches,filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, and the like to facilitate OTAcommunications) to communicate with components of a positioning network,such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some examples, thepositioning circuitry 445 may include a Micro-Technology forPositioning, Navigation, and Timing (Micro-PNT) IC that uses a mastertiming clock to perform position tracking and estimation without GNSSassistance. The positioning circuitry 445 may also be part of, orinteract with, the baseband circuitry 410 or RFEMs 415, or both, tocommunicate with the nodes and components of the positioning network.The positioning circuitry 445 may also provide data (e.g., positiondata, time data) to the application circuitry 405, which may use thedata to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., RANnodes 111).

The components shown by FIG. 2 may communicate with one another usinginterface circuitry, which may include any number of bus or interconnect(IX) technologies such as industry standard architecture (ISA), extendedISA (EISA), peripheral component interconnect (PCI), peripheralcomponent interconnect extended (PCIx), PCI express (PCIe), or anynumber of other technologies. The bus or IX may be a proprietary bus,for example, used in a SoC based system. Other bus or IX systems may beincluded, such as an I2C interface, an SPI interface, point to pointinterfaces, and a power bus, among others.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a platform 500 (or “device 500”). Insome examples, the computer platform 500 may be suitable for use as UEs101, 201, 301, application servers 130, or any other component or devicediscussed herein. The platform 500 may include any combinations of thecomponents shown in the example. The components of platform 500 (orportions thereof) may be implemented as integrated circuits (ICs),discrete electronic devices, or other modules, logic, hardware,software, firmware, or a combination of them adapted in the computerplatform 500, or as components otherwise incorporated within a chassisof a larger system. The block diagram of FIG. 5 is intended to show ahigh level view of components of the platform 500. However, in someexamples, the platform 500 may include fewer, additional, or alternativecomponents, or a different arrangement of the components shown in FIG. 5.

The application circuitry 505 includes circuitry such as, but notlimited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory,and one or more of LDOs, interrupt controllers, serial interfaces suchas SPI, I2C or universal programmable serial interface module, RTC,timer-counters including interval and watchdog timers, general purposeI/O, memory card controllers such as SD MMC or similar, USB interfaces,MIPI interfaces, and JTAG test access ports. The processors (or cores)of the application circuitry 505 may be coupled with or may includememory/storage elements and may be configured to execute instructionsstored in the memory or storage to enable various applications oroperating systems to run on the system 500. In some examples, the memoryor storage elements may be on-chip memory circuitry, which may includeany suitable volatile or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM,EEPROM, Flash memory, solid-state memory, or combinations of them, amongother types of memory.

The processor(s) of application circuitry 405 may include, for example,one or more processor cores, one or more application processors, one ormore GPUs, one or more RISC processors, one or more ARM processors, oneor more CISC processors, one or more DSP, one or more FPGAs, one or morePLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, amultithreaded processor, an ultra-low voltage processor, an embeddedprocessor, some other known processing element, or any suitablecombination thereof. In some examples, the application circuitry 405 mayinclude, or may be, a special-purpose processor/controller to carry outthe techniques described herein.

As examples, the processor(s) of application circuitry 505 may includean Apple A-series processor. The processors of the application circuitry505 may also be one or more of an Intel® Architecture Core™ basedprocessor, such as a Quark™, an Atom™ an i3, an i5, an i7, or anMCU-class processor, or another such processor available from Intel®Corporation, Santa Clara, Calif.; Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen®processor(s) or Accelerated Processing Units (APUs); Snapdragon™processor(s) from Qualcomm® Technologies, Inc., Texas Instruments, Inc.®Open Multimedia Applications Platform (OMAP)™ processor(s); a MIPS-baseddesign from MIPS Technologies, Inc. such as MIPS Warrior M-class,Warrior I-class, and Warrior P-class processors; an ARM-based designlicensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARM Cortex-A, Cortex-R,and Cortex-M family of processors; or the like. In some implementations,the application circuitry 505 may be a part of a system on a chip (SoC)in which the application circuitry 505 and other components are formedinto a single integrated circuit.

Additionally or alternatively, the application circuitry 505 may includecircuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more a field-programmabledevices (FPDs) such as FPGAs; programmable logic devices (PLDs) such ascomplex PLDs (CPLDs), high-capacity PLDs (HCPLDs); ASICs such asstructured ASICs; programmable SoCs (PSoCs), or combinations of them,among others. In some examples, the application circuitry 505 mayinclude logic blocks or logic fabric, and other interconnected resourcesthat may be programmed to perform various functions, such as theprocedures, methods, functions described herein. In some examples, theapplication circuitry 505 may include memory cells (e.g., erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory(e.g., static random access memory (SRAM), or anti-fuses)) used to storelogic blocks, logic fabric, data, or other data in look-up tables (LUTs)and the like.

The baseband circuitry 510 may be implemented, for example, as asolder-down substrate including one or more integrated circuits, asingle packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board or amulti-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Thevarious hardware electronic elements of baseband circuitry 510 arediscussed with regard to FIG. 4 .

The RFEMs 515 may comprise a millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one ormore sub-mmWave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In someexamples, the one or more sub-mmWave RFICs may be physically separatedfrom the mmWave RFEM. The RFICs may include connections to one or moreantennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., antenna array 611 of FIG. 4 ),and the RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In some examples,both mmWave and sub-mmWave radio functions may be implemented in thesame physical RFEM 515, which incorporates both mmWave antennas andsub-mmWave.

The memory circuitry 520 may include any number and type of memorydevices used to provide for a given amount of system memory. Asexamples, the memory circuitry 520 may include one or more of volatilememory, such as random access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM) orsynchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM), and nonvolatile memory (NVM), such ashigh-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as Flashmemory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), or magnetoresistiverandom access memory (MRAM), or combinations of them, among others. Thememory circuitry 520 may be developed in accordance with a JointElectron Devices Engineering Council (JEDEC) low power double data rate(LPDDR)-based design, such as LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, or the like.Memory circuitry 520 may be implemented as one or more of solder downpackaged integrated circuits, single die package (SDP), dual die package(DDP) or quad die package (Q17P), socketed memory modules, dual inlinememory modules (DIMMs) including microDIMMs or MiniDIMMs, or solderedonto a motherboard using a ball grid array (BGA). In low powerimplementations, the memory circuitry 520 may be on-die memory orregisters associated with the application circuitry 505. To provide forpersistent storage of information such as data, applications, operatingsystems and so forth, memory circuitry 520 may include one or more massstorage devices, which may include, for example, a solid state diskdrive (SSDD), hard disk drive (HDD), a micro HDD, resistance changememories, phase change memories, holographic memories, or chemicalmemories, among others. In some examples, the computer platform 500 mayincorporate the three-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memoriesfrom Intel® and Micron®.

The removable memory circuitry 523 may include devices, circuitry,enclosures, housings, ports or receptacles, among others, used to coupleportable data storage devices with the platform 500. These portable datastorage devices may be used for mass storage purposes, and may include,for example, flash memory cards (e.g., Secure Digital (SD) cards,microSD cards, xD picture cards), and USB flash drives, optical discs,or external HDDs, or combinations of them, among others.

The platform 500 may also include interface circuitry (not shown) forconnecting external devices with the platform 500. The external devicesconnected to the platform 500 using the interface circuitry includesensor circuitry 521 and electro-mechanical components (EMCs) 522, aswell as removable memory devices coupled to removable memory circuitry523.

The sensor circuitry 521 include devices, modules, or subsystems whosepurpose is to detect events or changes in its environment and send theinformation (e.g., sensor data) about the detected events to one or moreother devices, modules, or subsystems. Examples of such sensors includeinertial measurement units (IMUs) such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, ormagnetometers; microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) ornanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) including 3-axis accelerometers,3-axis gyroscopes, or magnetometers; level sensors; flow sensors;temperature sensors (e.g., thermistors); pressure sensors; barometricpressure sensors; gravimeters; altimeters; image capture devices (e.g.,cameras or lensless apertures); light detection and ranging (LiDAR)sensors; proximity sensors (e.g., infrared radiation detector and thelike), depth sensors, ambient light sensors, ultrasonic transceivers;microphones or other audio capture devices, or combinations of them,among others.

The EMCs 522 include devices, modules, or subsystems whose purpose is toenable the platform 500 to change its state, position, or orientation,or move or control a mechanism, system, or subsystem. Additionally, theEMCs 522 may be configured to generate and send messages or signaling toother components of the platform 500 to indicate a current state of theEMCs 522. Examples of the EMCs 522 include one or more power switches,relays, such as electromechanical relays (EMRs) or solid state relays(SSRs), actuators (e.g., valve actuators), an audible sound generator, avisual warning device, motors (e.g., DC motors or stepper motors),wheels, thrusters, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks, or combinations ofthem, among other electro-mechanical components. In some examples, theplatform 500 is configured to operate one or more EMCs 522 based on oneor more captured events, instructions, or control signals received froma service provider or clients, or both.

In some examples, the interface circuitry may connect the platform 500with positioning circuitry 545. The positioning circuitry 545 includescircuitry to receive and decode signals transmitted or broadcasted by apositioning network of a GNSS. Examples of a GNSS include United States'GPS, Russia's GLONASS, the European Union's Galileo system, China'sBeiDou Navigation Satellite System, a regional navigation system or GNSSaugmentation system (e.g., NAVIC), Japan's QZSS, France's DORIS, amongother systems. The positioning circuitry 545 comprises various hardwareelements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters,amplifiers, antenna elements, and the like to facilitate OTAcommunications) to communicate with components of a positioning network,such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some examples, thepositioning circuitry 545 may include a Micro-PNT IC that uses a mastertiming clock to perform position tracking or estimation without GNSSassistance. The positioning circuitry 545 may also be part of, orinteract with, the baseband circuitry 410 or RFEMs 515, or both, tocommunicate with the nodes and components of the positioning network.The positioning circuitry 545 may also provide data (e.g., positiondata, time data) to the application circuitry 505, which may use thedata to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., radiobase stations), for turn-by-turn navigation applications, or the like.

In some examples, the interface circuitry may connect the platform 500with Near-Field Communication (NFC) circuitry 540. The NFC circuitry 540is configured to provide contactless, short-range communications basedon radio frequency identification (RFID) standards, in which magneticfield induction is used to enable communication between NFC circuitry540 and NFC-enabled devices external to the platform 500 (e.g., an “NFCtouchpoint”). The NFC circuitry 540 includes an NFC controller coupledwith an antenna element and a processor coupled with the NFC controller.The NFC controller may be a chip or IC providing NFC functionalities tothe NFC circuitry 540 by executing NFC controller firmware and an NFCstack. The NFC stack may be executed by the processor to control the NFCcontroller, and the NFC controller firmware may be executed by the NFCcontroller to control the antenna element to emit short-range RFsignals. The RF signals may power a passive NFC tag (e.g., a microchipembedded in a sticker or wristband) to transmit stored data to the NFCcircuitry 540, or initiate data transfer between the NFC circuitry 540and another active NFC device (e.g., a smartphone or an NFC-enabled POSterminal) that is proximate to the platform 500.

The driver circuitry 546 may include software and hardware elements thatoperate to control particular devices that are embedded in the platform500, attached to the platform 500, or otherwise communicatively coupledwith the platform 500. The driver circuitry 546 may include individualdrivers allowing other components of the platform 500 to interact withor control various input/output (I/O) devices that may be presentwithin, or connected to, the platform 500. For example, the drivercircuitry 546 may include a display driver to control and allow accessto a display device, a touchscreen driver to control and allow access toa touchscreen interface of the platform 500, sensor drivers to obtainsensor readings of sensor circuitry 521 and control and allow access tosensor circuitry 521, EMC drivers to obtain actuator positions of theEMCs 522 or control and allow access to the EMCs 522, a camera driver tocontrol and allow access to an embedded image capture device, audiodrivers to control and allow access to one or more audio devices.

The power management integrated circuitry (PMIC) 525 (also referred toas “power management circuitry 525”) may manage power provided tovarious components of the platform 500. In particular, with respect tothe baseband circuitry 510, the PMIC 525 may control power-sourceselection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-to-DC conversion.The PMIC 525 may be included when the platform 500 is capable of beingpowered by a battery 530, for example, when the device is included in aUE 101, 201, 301.

In some examples, the PMIC 525 may control, or otherwise be part of,various power saving mechanisms of the platform 500. For example, if theplatform 500 is in an RRC_Connected state, where it is still connectedto the RAN node as it expects to receive traffic shortly, then it mayenter a state known as Discontinuous Reception Mode (DRX) after a periodof inactivity. During this state, the platform 500 may power down forbrief intervals of time and thus save power. If there is no data trafficactivity for an extended period of time, then the platform 500 maytransition off to an RRC_Idle state, where it disconnects from thenetwork and does not perform operations such as channel quality feedbackor handover. This can allow the platform 500 to enter a very low powerstate, where it periodically wakes up to listen to the network and thenpowers down again. In some examples, the platform 500 may not receivedata in the RRC_Idle state and instead must transition back toRRC_Connected state to receive data. An additional power saving mode mayallow a device to be unavailable to the network for periods longer thana paging interval (ranging from seconds to a few hours). During thistime, the device may be unreachable to the network and may power downcompletely. Any data sent during this time may incurs a large delay andit is assumed the delay is acceptable.

A battery 530 may power the platform 500, although in some examples theplatform 500 may be deployed in a fixed location, and may have a powersupply coupled to an electrical grid. The battery 530 may be a lithiumion battery, a metal-air battery, such as a zinc-air battery, analuminum-air battery, or a lithium-air battery, among others. In someexamples, such as in V2X applications, the battery 530 may be a typicallead-acid automotive battery.

In some examples, the battery 530 may be a “smart battery,” whichincludes or is coupled with a Battery Management System (BMS) or batterymonitoring integrated circuitry. The BMS may be included in the platform500 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 530. The BMS maybe used to monitor other parameters of the battery 530 to providefailure predictions, such as the state of health (SoH) and the state offunction (SoF) of the battery 530. The BMS may communicate theinformation of the battery 530 to the application circuitry 505 or othercomponents of the platform 500. The BMS may also include ananalog-to-digital (ADC) convertor that allows the application circuitry505 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 530 or the currentflow from the battery 530. The battery parameters may be used todetermine actions that the platform 500 may perform, such astransmission frequency, network operation, or sensing frequency, amongothers.

A power block, or other power supply coupled to an electrical grid maybe coupled with the BMS to charge the battery 530. In some examples, thepower block 530 may be replaced with a wireless power receiver to obtainthe power wirelessly, for example, through a loop antenna in thecomputer platform 500. In these examples, a wireless battery chargingcircuit may be included in the BMS. The specific charging circuitschosen may depend on the size of the battery 530, and thus, the currentrequired. The charging may be performed using the Airfuel standardpromulgated by the Airfuel Alliance, the Qi wireless charging standardpromulgated by the Wireless Power Consortium, or the Rezence chargingstandard promulgated by the Alliance for Wireless Power, among others.

The user interface circuitry 550 includes various input/output (I/O)devices present within, or connected to, the platform 500, and includesone or more user interfaces designed to enable user interaction with theplatform 500 or peripheral component interfaces designed to enableperipheral component interaction with the platform 500. The userinterface circuitry 550 includes input device circuitry and outputdevice circuitry. Input device circuitry includes any physical orvirtual means for accepting an input including one or more physical orvirtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), a physical keyboard, keypad,mouse, touchpad, touchscreen, microphones, scanner, or headset, orcombinations of them, among others. The output device circuitry includesany physical or virtual means for showing information or otherwiseconveying information, such as sensor readings, actuator position(s), orother information. Output device circuitry may include any number orcombinations of audio or visual display, including one or more simplevisual outputs or indicators (e.g., binary status indicators (e.g.,light emitting diodes (LEDs)), multi-character visual outputs, or morecomplex outputs such as display devices or touchscreens (e.g., LiquidChrystal Displays (LCD), LED displays, quantum dot displays, orprojectors), with the output of characters, graphics, or multimediaobjects being generated or produced from the operation of the platform500. The output device circuitry may also include speakers or otheraudio emitting devices, or printer(s). In some examples, the sensorcircuitry 521 may be used as the input device circuitry (e.g., an imagecapture device or motion capture device), and one or more EMCs may beused as the output device circuitry (e.g., an actuator to provide hapticfeedback). In another example, NFC circuitry comprising an NFCcontroller coupled with an antenna element and a processing device maybe included to read electronic tags or connect with another NFC-enableddevice. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limitedto, a non-volatile memory port, a USB port, an audio jack, or a powersupply interface.

Although not shown, the components of platform 500 may communicate withone another using a suitable bus or interconnect (IX) technology, whichmay include any number of technologies, including ISA, EISA, PCI, PCIx,PCIe, a Time-Trigger Protocol (TTP) system, a FlexRay system, or anynumber of other technologies. The bus or IX may be a proprietary bus orIX, for example, used in a SoC based system. Other bus or IX systems maybe included, such as an I2C interface, an SPI interface, point-to-pointinterfaces, and a power bus, among others.

FIG. 4 illustrates example components of baseband circuitry 610 andradio front end modules (RFEM) 615. The baseband circuitry 610 cancorrespond to the baseband circuitry 410 and 510 of FIGS. 4 and 5 ,respectively. The RFEM 615 can correspond to the RFEM 415 and 515 ofFIGS. 4 and 5 , respectively. As shown, the RFEMs 615 may include RadioFrequency (RF) circuitry 606, front-end module (FEM) circuitry 608,antenna array 611 coupled together.

The baseband circuitry 610 includes circuitry or control logic, or both,configured to carry out various radio or network protocol and controlfunctions that enable communication with one or more radio networksusing the RF circuitry 606. The radio control functions may include, butare not limited to, signal modulation and demodulation, encoding anddecoding, and radio frequency shifting. In some examples, modulation anddemodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry 610 may includeFast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping anddemapping functionality. In some examples, encoding and decodingcircuitry of the baseband circuitry 610 may include convolution,tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check(LDPC) encoder and decoder functionality. Modulation and demodulationand encoder and decoder functionality are not limited to these examplesand may include other suitable functionality in other examples. Thebaseband circuitry 610 is configured to process baseband signalsreceived from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry 606 and togenerate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry606. The baseband circuitry 610 is configured to interface withapplication circuitry (e.g., the application circuitry 405, 505 shown inFIGS. 2 and 3 ) for generation and processing of the baseband signalsand for controlling operations of the RF circuitry 606. The basebandcircuitry 610 may handle various radio control functions.

The aforementioned circuitry and control logic of the baseband circuitry610 may include one or more single or multi-core processors. Forexample, the one or more processors may include a 3G baseband processor604A, a 4G or LTE baseband processor 604B, a 5G or NR baseband processor604C, or some other baseband processor(s) 604D for other existinggenerations, generations in development or to be developed in the future(e.g., sixth generation (6G)). In some examples, some or all of thefunctionality of baseband processors 604A-D may be included in modulesstored in the memory 604G and executed using a Central Processing Unit(CPU) 604E. In some examples, some or all of the functionality ofbaseband processors 604A-D may be provided as hardware accelerators(e.g., FPGAs or ASICs) loaded with the appropriate bit streams or logicblocks stored in respective memory cells. In some examples, the memory604G may store program code of a real-time OS (RTOS) which, whenexecuted by the CPU 604E (or other baseband processor), is to cause theCPU 604E (or other baseband processor) to manage resources of thebaseband circuitry 610, schedule tasks, or carry out other operations.Examples of the RTOS may include Operating System Embedded (OSE)™provided by Enea®, Nucleus RTOS™ provided by Mentor Graphics®, VersatileReal-Time Executive (VRTX) provided by Mentor Graphics®, ThreadX™provided by Express Logic®, FreeRTOS, REX OS provided by Qualcomm®, OKL4provided by Open Kernel (OK) Labs®, or any other suitable RTOS, such asthose discussed herein. In addition, the baseband circuitry 610 includesone or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 604F. The audioDSP(s) 604F include elements for compression and decompression and echocancellation and may include other suitable processing elements in someexamples.

In some examples, each of the processors 604A-604E include respectivememory interfaces to send and receive data to and from the memory 604G.The baseband circuitry 610 may further include one or more interfaces tocommunicatively couple to other circuitries or devices, such as aninterface to send and receive data to and from memory external to thebaseband circuitry 610; an application circuitry interface to send andreceive data to and from the application circuitry 405, 505 of FIGS. 2and 3 ); an RF circuitry interface to send and receive data to and fromRF circuitry 606 of FIG. 4 ; a wireless hardware connectivity interfaceto send and receive data to and from one or more wireless hardwareelements (e.g., Near Field Communication (NFC) components,Bluetooth®/Bluetooth® Low Energy components, Wi-Fi® components, and/orthe like); and a power management interface to send and receive power orcontrol signals to and from the PMIC 525.

In some examples (which may be combined with the above describedexamples), the baseband circuitry 610 includes one or more digitalbaseband systems, which are coupled with one another using aninterconnect subsystem and to a CPU subsystem, an audio subsystem, andan interface subsystem. The digital baseband subsystems may also becoupled to a digital baseband interface and a mixed-signal basebandsubsystem using another interconnect subsystem. Each of the interconnectsubsystems may include a bus system, point-to-point connections,network-on-chip (NOC) structures, or some other suitable bus orinterconnect technology, such as those discussed herein. The audiosubsystem may include DSP circuitry, buffer memory, program memory,speech processing accelerator circuitry, data converter circuitry suchas analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converter circuitry, analogcircuitry including one or more of amplifiers and filters, among othercomponents. In some examples, the baseband circuitry 610 may includeprotocol processing circuitry with one or more instances of controlcircuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the digitalbaseband circuitry or radio frequency circuitry (e.g., the radio frontend modules 615).

Although not shown in FIG. 4 , in some examples, the baseband circuitry610 includes individual processing device(s) to operate one or morewireless communication protocols (e.g., a “multi-protocol basebandprocessor” or “protocol processing circuitry”) and individual processingdevice(s) to implement PHY layer functions. In some examples, the PHYlayer functions include the aforementioned radio control functions. Insome examples, the protocol processing circuitry operates or implementsvarious protocol layers or entities of one or more wirelesscommunication protocols. For example, the protocol processing circuitrymay operate LTE protocol entities or 5G NR protocol entities, or both,when the baseband circuitry 610 or RF circuitry 606, or both, are partof mmWave communication circuitry or some other suitable cellularcommunication circuitry. In this example, the protocol processingcircuitry can operate MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC, and NAS functions. Insome examples, the protocol processing circuitry may operate one or moreIEEE-based protocols when the baseband circuitry 610 or RF circuitry606, or both, are part of a Wi-Fi communication system. In this example,the protocol processing circuitry can operate Wi-Fi MAC and logical linkcontrol (LLC) functions. The protocol processing circuitry may includeone or more memory structures (e.g., 604G) to store program code anddata for operating the protocol functions, as well as one or moreprocessing cores to execute the program code and perform variousoperations using the data. The baseband circuitry 610 may also supportradio communications for more than one wireless protocol.

The various hardware elements of the baseband circuitry 610 discussedherein may be implemented, for example, as a solder-down substrateincluding one or more integrated circuits (ICs), a single packaged ICsoldered to a main circuit board or a multi-chip module containing twoor more ICs. In some examples, the components of the baseband circuitry610 may be suitably combined in a single chip or chipset, or disposed ona same circuit board. In some examples, some or all of the constituentcomponents of the baseband circuitry 610 and RF circuitry 606 may beimplemented together such as, for example, a system on a chip (SoC) orSystem-in-Package (SiP). In some examples, some or all of theconstituent components of the baseband circuitry 610 may be implementedas a separate SoC that is communicatively coupled with and RF circuitry606 (or multiple instances of RF circuitry 606). In some examples, someor all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 610 andthe application circuitry 405, 505 may be implemented together asindividual SoCs mounted to a same circuit board (e.g., a “multi-chippackage”).

In some examples, the baseband circuitry 610 may provide forcommunication compatible with one or more radio technologies. Forexample, the baseband circuitry 610 may support communication with anE-UTRAN or other WMAN, a WLAN, or a WPAN. Examples in which the basebandcircuitry 610 is configured to support radio communications of more thanone wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode basebandcircuitry.

The RF circuitry 606 may enable communication with wireless networksusing modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. Insome examples, the RF circuitry 606 may include switches, filters, oramplifiers, among other components, to facilitate the communication withthe wireless network. The RF circuitry 606 may include a receive signalpath, which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals receivedfrom the FEM circuitry 608 and provide baseband signals to the basebandcircuitry 610. The RF circuitry 606 may also include a transmit signalpath, which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signalsprovided by the baseband circuitry 610 and provide RF output signals tothe FEM circuitry 608 for transmission.

The receive signal path of the RF circuitry 606 includes mixer circuitry606 a, amplifier circuitry 606 b and filter circuitry 606 c. In someexamples, the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 606 may includefilter circuitry 606 c and mixer circuitry 606 a. The RF circuitry 606also includes synthesizer circuitry 606 d for synthesizing a frequencyfor use by the mixer circuitry 606 a of the receive signal path and thetransmit signal path. In some examples, the mixer circuitry 606 a of thereceive signal path may be configured to down-convert RF signalsreceived from the FEM circuitry 608 based on the synthesized frequencyprovided by synthesizer circuitry 606 d. The amplifier circuitry 606 bmay be configured to amplify the down-converted signals and the filtercircuitry 606 c may be a low-pass filter (LPF) or band-pass filter (BPF)configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signals togenerate output baseband signals. Output baseband signals may beprovided to the baseband circuitry 610 for further processing. In someexamples, the output baseband signals may be zero-frequency basebandsignals, although this is not a requirement. In some examples, the mixercircuitry 606 a of the receive signal path may comprise passive mixers.

In some examples, the mixer circuitry 606 a of the transmit signal pathmay be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on thesynthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 606 d togenerate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry 608. The basebandsignals may be provided by the baseband circuitry 610 and may befiltered by filter circuitry 606 c.

In some examples, the mixer circuitry 606 a of the receive signal pathand the mixer circuitry 606 a of the transmit signal path may includetwo or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature downconversion andupconversion, respectively. In some examples, the mixer circuitry 606 aof the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 606 a of the transmitsignal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for imagerejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some examples, the mixercircuitry 606 a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 606 aof the transmit signal path may be arranged for direct downconversionand direct upconversion, respectively. In some examples, the mixercircuitry 606 a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 606 aof the transmit signal path may be configured for super-heterodyneoperation.

In some examples, the output baseband signals and the input basebandsignals may be analog baseband signals. In some examples, the outputbaseband signals and the input baseband signals may be digital basebandsignals, and the RF circuitry 606 may include analog-to-digitalconverter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and thebaseband circuitry 610 may include a digital baseband interface tocommunicate with the RF circuitry 606.

In some dual-mode examples, a separate radio IC circuitry may beprovided for processing signals for each spectrum, although thetechniques described here are not limited in this respect.

In some examples, the synthesizer circuitry 606 d may be a fractional-Nsynthesizer or a fractional N/N+1 synthesizer, although other types offrequency synthesizers may used. For example, synthesizer circuitry 606d may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or asynthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

The synthesizer circuitry 606 d may be configured to synthesize anoutput frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 606 a of the RFcircuitry 606 based on a frequency input and a divider control input. Insome examples, the synthesizer circuitry 606 d may be a fractional N/N+1synthesizer.

In some examples, frequency input may be provided by a voltagecontrolled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. Dividercontrol input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry 610 orthe application circuitry 405/505 depending on the desired outputfrequency. In some examples, a divider control input (e.g., N) may bedetermined from a look-up table based on a channel indicated by theapplication circuitry 405, 505.

The synthesizer circuitry 606 d of the RF circuitry 606 may include adivider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phaseaccumulator. In some examples, the divider may be a dual modulus divider(DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator(DPA). In some examples, the DMD may be configured to divide the inputsignal by either N or N+1 (e.g., based on a carry out) to provide afractional division ratio. In some examples, the DLL may include a setof cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phase detector, a charge pumpand a D-type flip-flop. The delay elements may be configured to break aVCO period up into Nd equal packets of phase, where Nd is the number ofdelay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negativefeedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line isone VCO cycle.

In some examples, synthesizer circuitry 606 d may be configured togenerate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in otherexamples, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrierfrequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrierfrequency) and used in conjunction with quadrature generator and dividercircuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency withmultiple different phases with respect to each other. In some examples,the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In some examples, theRF circuitry 606 may include an IQ or polar converter.

The FEM circuitry 608 may include a receive signal path, which mayinclude circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received fromantenna array 611, amplify the received signals and provide theamplified versions of the received signals to the RF circuitry 606 forfurther processing. The FEM circuitry 608 may also include a transmitsignal path, which may include circuitry configured to amplify signalsfor transmission provided by the RF circuitry 606 for transmission byone or more of antenna elements of antenna array 611. The amplificationthrough transmit or receive signal paths may be done solely in the RFcircuitry 606, solely in the FEM circuitry 608, or in both the RFcircuitry 606 and the FEM circuitry 608.

In some examples, the FEM circuitry 608 may include a TX/RX switch toswitch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEMcircuitry 608 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signalpath. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry 608 may include anLNA to amplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RFsignals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 606). The transmitsignal path of the FEM circuitry 608 may include a power amplifier (PA)to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by RF circuitry 606), andone or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmissionby one or more antenna elements of the antenna array 611.

The antenna array 611 comprises one or more antenna elements, each ofwhich is configured convert electrical signals into radio waves totravel through the air and to convert received radio waves intoelectrical signals. For example, digital baseband signals provided bythe baseband circuitry 610 is converted into analog RF signals (e.g.,modulated waveform) that will be amplified and transmitted using theantenna elements of the antenna array 611 including one or more antennaelements (not shown). The antenna elements may be omnidirectional,directional, or a combination thereof. The antenna elements may beformed in a multitude of arranges as are known and/or discussed herein.The antenna array 611 may comprise microstrip antennas or printedantennas that are fabricated on the surface of one or more printedcircuit boards. The antenna array 611 may be formed as a patch of metalfoil (e.g., a patch antenna) in a variety of shapes, and may be coupledwith the RF circuitry 606 and/or FEM circuitry 608 using metaltransmission lines or the like.

Processors of the application circuitry 405/505 and processors of thebaseband circuitry 610 may be used to execute elements of one or moreinstances of a protocol stack. For example, processors of the basebandcircuitry 610, alone or in combination, may be used execute Layer 3,Layer 2, or Layer 1 functionality, while processors of the applicationcircuitry 405, 505 may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received fromthese layers and further execute Layer 4 functionality (e.g., TCP andUDP layers). As referred to herein, Layer 3 may comprise a RRC layer,described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 2 maycomprise a MAC layer, an RLC layer, and a PDCP layer, described infurther detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 1 may comprise a PHYlayer of a UE/RAN node, described in further detail below.

FIG. 5 illustrates various protocol functions that may be implemented ina wireless communication device. In particular, FIG. 5 includes anarrangement 800 showing interconnections between various protocollayers/entities. The following description of FIG. 5 is provided forvarious protocol layers and entities that operate in conjunction withthe 5G NR system standards and the LTE system standards, but some or allof the aspects of FIG. 5 may be applicable to other wirelesscommunication network systems as well.

The protocol layers of arrangement 800 may include one or more of PHY810, MAC 820, RLC 830, PDCP 840, SDAP 847, RRC 855, and NAS layer 857,in addition to other higher layer functions not illustrated. Theprotocol layers may include one or more service access points (e.g.,items 859, 856, 850, 849, 845, 835, 825, and 815 in FIG. 5 ) that mayprovide communication between two or more protocol layers.

The PHY 810 may transmit and receive physical layer signals 805 that maybe received from or transmitted to one or more other communicationdevices. The physical layer signals 805 may include one or more physicalchannels, such as those discussed herein. The PHY 810 may furtherperform link adaptation or adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), powercontrol, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and handoverpurposes), and other measurements used by higher layers, such as the RRC855. The PHY 810 may still further perform error detection on thetransport channels, forward error correction (FEC) coding and decodingof the transport channels, modulation and demodulation of physicalchannels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping onto physical channels,and MIMO antenna processing. In some examples, an instance of PHY 810may process requests from and provide indications to an instance of MAC820 using one or more PHY-SAP 815. In some examples, requests andindications communicated using PHY-SAP 815 may comprise one or moretransport channels.

Instance(s) of MAC 820 may process requests from, and provideindications to, an instance of RLC 830 using one or more MAC-SAPs 825.These requests and indications communicated using the MAC-SAP 825 mayinclude one or more logical channels. The MAC 820 may perform mappingbetween the logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing of MACservice data units (SDUs) from one or more logical channels ontotransport blocks (TBs) to be delivered to PHY 810 using the transportchannels, de-multiplexing MAC SDUs to one or more logical channels fromTBs delivered from the PHY 810 using transport channels, multiplexingMAC SDUs onto TBs, scheduling information reporting, error correctionthrough HARQ, and logical channel prioritization.

Instance(s) of RLC 830 may process requests from and provide indicationsto an instance of PDCP 840 using one or more radio link control serviceaccess points (RLC-SAP) 835. These requests and indications communicatedusing RLC-SAP 835 may include one or more RLC channels. The RLC 830 mayoperate in a plurality of modes of operation, including: TransparentMode™, Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM). The RLC 830may execute transfer of upper layer protocol data units (PDUs), errorcorrection through automatic repeat request (ARQ) for AM data transfers,and concatenation, segmentation and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AMdata transfers. The RLC 830 may also execute re-segmentation of RLC dataPDUs for AM data transfers, reorder RLC data PDUs for UM and AM datatransfers, detect duplicate data for UM and AM data transfers, discardRLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfers, detect protocol errors for AMdata transfers, and perform RLC re-establishment.

Instance(s) of PDCP 840 may process requests from and provideindications to instance(s) of RRC 855 or instance(s) of SDAP 847, orboth, using one or more packet data convergence protocol service accesspoints (PDCP-SAP) 845. These requests and indications communicated usingPDCP-SAP 845 may include one or more radio bearers. The PDCP 840 mayexecute header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCPSequence Numbers (SNs), perform in-sequence delivery of upper layer PDUsat re-establishment of lower layers, eliminate duplicates of lower layerSDUs at re-establishment of lower layers for radio bearers mapped on RLCAM, cipher and decipher control plane data, perform integrity protectionand integrity verification of control plane data, control timer-baseddiscard of data, and perform security operations (e.g., ciphering,deciphering, integrity protection, or integrity verification).

Instance(s) of SDAP 847 may process requests from and provideindications to one or more higher layer protocol entities using one ormore SDAP-SAP 849. These requests and indications communicated usingSDAP-SAP 849 may include one or more QoS flows. The SDAP 847 may map QoSflows to data radio bearers (DRBs), and vice versa, and may also markQoS flow identifiers (QFIs) in DL and UL packets. A single SDAP entity847 may be configured for an individual PDU session. In the ULdirection, the NG-RAN 110 may control the mapping of QoS Flows to DRB(s)in two different ways, reflective mapping or explicit mapping. Forreflective mapping, the SDAP 847 of a UE 101 may monitor the QFIs of theDL packets for each DRB, and may apply the same mapping for packetsflowing in the UL direction. For a DRB, the SDAP 847 of the UE 101 maymap the UL packets belonging to the QoS flows(s) corresponding to theQoS flow ID(s) and PDU session observed in the DL packets for that DRB.To enable reflective mapping, the NG-RAN 310 may mark DL packets overthe Uu interface with a QoS flow ID. The explicit mapping may involvethe RRC 855 configuring the SDAP 847 with an explicit QoS flow to DRBmapping rule, which may be stored and followed by the SDAP 847. In someexamples, the SDAP 847 may only be used in NR implementations and maynot be used in LTE implementations.

The RRC 855 may configure, using one or more management service accesspoints (M-SAP), aspects of one or more protocol layers, which mayinclude one or more instances of PHY 810, MAC 820, RLC 830, PDCP 840 andSDAP 847. In some examples, an instance of RRC 855 may process requestsfrom and provide indications to one or more NAS entities 857 using oneor more RRC-SAPs 856. The main services and functions of the RRC 855 mayinclude broadcast of system information (e.g., included in masterinformation blocks (MIBs) or system information blocks (SIBs) related tothe NAS), broadcast of system information related to the access stratum(AS), paging, establishment, maintenance and release of an RRCconnection between the UE 101 and RAN 110 (e.g., RRC connection paging,RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification, and RRCconnection release), establishment, configuration, maintenance andrelease of point to point Radio Bearers, security functions includingkey management, inter-RAT mobility, and measurement configuration for UEmeasurement reporting. The MIBs and SIBs may comprise one or moreinformation elements, which may each comprise individual data fields ordata structures.

The NAS 857 may form the highest stratum of the control plane betweenthe UE 101 and the AMF 321. The NAS 857 may support the mobility of theUEs 101 and the session management procedures to establish and maintainIP connectivity between the UE 101 and a P-GW in LTE systems.

In some examples, one or more protocol entities of arrangement 800 maybe implemented in UEs 101, RAN nodes 111, AMF 321 in NR implementationsor MME 221 in LTE implementations, UPF 302 in NR implementations or S-GW222 and P-GW 223 in LTE implementations, or the like to be used forcontrol plane or user plane communications protocol stack between theaforementioned devices. In some examples, one or more protocol entitiesthat may be implemented in one or more of UE 101, gNB 111, AMF 321,among others, may communicate with a respective peer protocol entitythat may be implemented in or on another device using the services ofrespective lower layer protocol entities to perform such communication.In some examples, a gNB-CU of the gNB 111 may host the RRC 855, SDAP847, and PDCP 840 of the gNB that controls the operation of one or moregNB-DUs, and the gNB-DUs of the gNB 111 may each host the RLC 830, MAC820, and PHY 810 of the gNB 111.

In some examples, a control plane protocol stack may include, in orderfrom highest layer to lowest layer, NAS 857, RRC 855, PDCP 840, RLC 830,MAC 820, and PHY 810. In this example, upper layers 860 may be built ontop of the NAS 857, which includes an IP layer 861, an SCTP 862, and anapplication layer signaling protocol (AP) 863.

In some examples, such as NR implementations, the AP 863 may be an NGapplication protocol layer (NGAP or NG-AP) 863 for the NG interface 113defined between the NG-RAN node 111 and the AMF 321, or the AP 863 maybe an Xn application protocol layer (XnAP or Xn-AP) 863 for the Xninterface 112 that is defined between two or more RAN nodes 111.

The NG-AP 863 may support the functions of the NG interface 113 and maycomprise elementary procedures (EPs). An NG-AP EP may be a unit ofinteraction between the NG-RAN node 111 and the AMF 321. The NG-AP 863services may include two groups: UE-associated services (e.g., servicesrelated to a UE 101) and non-UE-associated services (e.g., servicesrelated to the whole NG interface instance between the NG-RAN node 111and AMF 321). These services may include functions such as, but notlimited to: a paging function for the sending of paging requests toNG-RAN nodes 111 involved in a particular paging area; a UE contextmanagement function for allowing the AMF 321 to establish, modify, orrelease a UE context in the AMF 321 and the NG-RAN node 111; a mobilityfunction for UEs 101 in ECM-CONNECTED mode for intra-system HOs tosupport mobility within NG-RAN and inter-system HOs to support mobilityfrom/to EPS systems; a NAS Signaling Transport function for transportingor rerouting NAS messages between UE 101 and AMF 321; a NAS nodeselection function for determining an association between the AMF 321and the UE 101; NG interface management function(s) for setting up theNG interface and monitoring for errors over the NG interface; a warningmessage transmission function for providing means to transfer warningmessages using NG interface or cancel ongoing broadcast of warningmessages; a configuration transfer function for requesting andtransferring of RAN configuration information (e.g., SON information orperformance measurement (PM) data) between two RAN nodes 111 using CN120, or combinations of them, among others.

The XnAP 863 may support the functions of the Xn interface 112 and maycomprise XnAP basic mobility procedures and XnAP global procedures. TheXnAP basic mobility procedures may comprise procedures used to handle UEmobility within the NG RAN 111 (or E-UTRAN 210), such as handoverpreparation and cancellation procedures, SN Status Transfer procedures,UE context retrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN pagingprocedures, or dual connectivity related procedures, among others. TheXnAP global procedures may comprise procedures that are not related to aspecific UE 101, such as Xn interface setup and reset procedures, NG-RANupdate procedures, or cell activation procedures, among others.

In LTE implementations, the AP 863 may be an S1 Application Protocollayer (S1-AP) 863 for the S1 interface 113 defined between an E-UTRANnode 111 and an MME, or the AP 863 may be an X2 application protocollayer (X2AP or X2-AP) 863 for the X2 interface 112 that is definedbetween two or more E-UTRAN nodes 111.

The S1 Application Protocol layer (S1-AP) 863 may support the functionsof the S1 interface, and similar to the NG-AP discussed previously, theS1-AP may include S1-AP EPs. An S1-AP EP may be a unit of interactionbetween the E-UTRAN node 111 and an MME 221 within a LTE CN 120. TheS1-AP 863 services may comprise two groups: UE-associated services andnon UE-associated services. These services perform functions including,but not limited to: E-UTRAN Radio Access Bearer (E-RAB) management, UEcapability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transport, RANInformation Management (RIM), and configuration transfer.

The X2AP 863 may support the functions of the X2 interface 112 and mayinclude X2AP basic mobility procedures and X2AP global procedures. TheX2AP basic mobility procedures may include procedures used to handle UEmobility within the E-UTRAN 120, such as handover preparation andcancellation procedures, SN Status Transfer procedures, UE contextretrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, ordual connectivity related procedures, among others. The X2AP globalprocedures may comprise procedures that are not related to a specific UE101, such as X2 interface setup and reset procedures, load indicationprocedures, error indication procedures, or cell activation procedures,among others.

The SCTP layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP/IP layer) 862 mayprovide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages (e.g., NGAP orXnAP messages in NR implementations, or S1-AP or X2AP messages in LTEimplementations). The SCTP 862 may ensure reliable delivery of signalingmessages between the RAN node 111 and the AMF 321/MME 221 based in parton the IP protocol, supported by the IP 861. The Internet Protocol layer(IP) 861 may be used to perform packet addressing and routingfunctionality. In some implementations the IP layer 861 may usepoint-to-point transmission to deliver and convey PDUs. In this regard,the RAN node 111 may include L2 and L1 layer communication links (e.g.,wired or wireless) with the MME/AMF to exchange information.

In some examples, a user plane protocol stack may include, in order fromhighest layer to lowest layer, SDAP 847, PDCP 840, RLC 830, MAC 820, andPHY 810. The user plane protocol stack may be used for communicationbetween the UE 101, the RAN node 111, and UPF 302 in NR implementationsor an S-GW 222 and P-GW 223 in LTE implementations. In this example,upper layers 851 may be built on top of the SDAP 847, and may include auser datagram protocol (UDP) and IP security layer (UDP/IP) 852, aGeneral Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunneling Protocol for the userplane layer (GTP-U) 853, and a User Plane PDU layer (UP PDU) 863.

The transport network layer 854 (also referred to as a “transportlayer”) may be built on IP transport, and the GTP-U 853 may be used ontop of the UDP/IP layer 852 (comprising a UDP layer and IP layer) tocarry user plane PDUs (UP-PDUs). The IP layer (also referred to as the“Internet layer”) may be used to perform packet addressing and routingfunctionality. The IP layer may assign IP addresses to user data packetsin any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats, for example.

The GTP-U 853 may be used for carrying user data within the GPRS corenetwork and between the radio access network and the core network. Theuser data transported can be packets in any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPPformats, for example. The UDP/IP 852 may provide checksums for dataintegrity, port numbers for addressing different functions at the sourceand destination, and encryption and authentication on the selected dataflows. The RAN node 111 and the S-GW 222 may utilize an S1-U interfaceto exchange user plane data using a protocol stack comprising an L1layer (e.g., PHY 810), an L2 layer (e.g., MAC 820, RLC 830, PDCP 840,and/or SDAP 847), the UDP/IP layer 852, and the GTP-U 853. The S-GW 222and the P-GW 223 may utilize an S5/S8a interface to exchange user planedata using a protocol stack comprising an L1 layer, an L2 layer, theUDP/IP layer 852, and the GTP-U 853. As discussed previously, NASprotocols may support the mobility of the UE 101 and the sessionmanagement procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity betweenthe UE 101 and the P-GW 223.

Moreover, although not shown by FIG. 5 , an application layer may bepresent above the AP 863 and/or the transport network layer 854. Theapplication layer may be a layer in which a user of the UE 101, RAN node111, or other network element interacts with software applications beingexecuted, for example, by application circuitry 405 or applicationcircuitry 505, respectively. The application layer may also provide oneor more interfaces for software applications to interact withcommunications systems of the UE 101 or RAN node 111, such as thebaseband circuitry 610. In some examples, the IP layer or theapplication layer, or both, may provide the same or similarfunctionality as layers 5-7, or portions thereof, of the Open SystemsInterconnection (OSI) model (e.g., OSI Layer 7—the application layer,OSI Layer 6—the presentation layer, and OSI Layer 5—the session layer).

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating components of a system 1000 tosupport NFV. The system 1000 is illustrated as including a virtualizedinfrastructure manager (VIM) 1002, a network function virtualizationinfrastructure (NFVI) 1004, a virtualized network function manager(VNFM) 1006, virtualized network functions (VNFs) 1008, an elementmanager (EM) 1010, a network function virtualization orchestrator (NFVO)1012, and a network manager (NM) 1014.

The VIM 1002 manages the resources of the NFVI 1004. The NFVI 1004 caninclude physical or virtual resources and applications (includinghypervisors) used to execute the system 1000. The VIM 1002 may managethe life cycle of virtual resources with the NFVI 1004 (e.g., creation,maintenance, and tear down of VMs associated with one or more physicalresources), track VM instances, track performance, fault and security ofVM instances and associated physical resources, and expose VM instancesand associated physical resources to other management systems.

The VNFM 1006 may manage the VNFs 1008. The VNFs 1008 may be used toexecute, for example, EPC components and functions. The VNFM 1006 maymanage the life cycle of the VNFs 1008 and track performance, fault andsecurity of the virtual aspects of VNFs 1008. The EM 1010 may track theperformance, fault and security of the functional aspects of VNFs 1008.The tracking data from the VNFM 1006 and the EM 1010 may comprise, forexample, PM data used by the VIM 1002 or the NFVI 1004. Both the VNFM1006 and the EM 1010 can scale up or down the quantity of VNFs of thesystem 1000.

The NFVO 1012 may coordinate, authorize, release and engage resources ofthe NFVI 1004 in order to provide the requested service (e.g., toexecute an EPC function, component, or slice). The NM 1014 may provide apackage of end-user functions with the responsibility for the managementof a network, which may include network elements with VNFs,non-virtualized network functions, or both (management of the VNFs mayoccur using the EM 1010).

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating components for readinginstructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g.,a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any oneor more of the techniques described herein. Specifically, FIG. 7 shows adiagrammatic representation of hardware resources 1100 including one ormore processors (or processor cores) 1110, one or more memory or storagedevices 1120, and one or more communication resources 1130, each ofwhich may be communicatively coupled using a bus 1140. Forimplementations where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, ahypervisor 1102 may be executed to provide an execution environment forone or more network slices or sub-slices to utilize the hardwareresources 1100.

The processors 1110 may include a processor 1112 and a processor 1114.The processor(s) 1110 may be, for example, a central processing unit(CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complexinstruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit(GPU), a DSP such as a baseband processor, an ASIC, an FPGA, aradio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor (includingthose discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

The memory/storage devices 1120 may include main memory, disk storage,or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices 1120 mayinclude, but are not limited to, any type of volatile or nonvolatilememory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random accessmemory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flashmemory, or solid-state storage, or combinations of them, among others.

The communication resources 1130 may include interconnection or networkinterface components or other suitable devices to communicate with oneor more peripheral devices 1104 or one or more databases 1106 using anetwork 1108. For example, the communication resources 1130 may includewired communication components (e.g., for coupling using USB), cellularcommunication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® (or Bluetooth® LowEnergy) components, Wi-Fi® (ID components, and other communicationcomponents.

Instructions 1150 may comprise software, a program, an application, anapplet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of theprocessors 1110 to perform any one or more of the methodologiesdiscussed herein. The instructions 1150 may reside, completely orpartially, within at least one of the processors 1110 (e.g., within theprocessor's cache memory), the memory/storage devices 1120, or anysuitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of theinstructions 1150 may be transferred to the hardware resources 1100 fromany combination of the peripheral devices 1104 or the databases 1106.Accordingly, the memory of processors 1110, the memory/storage devices1120, the peripheral devices 1104, and the databases 1106 are examplesof computer-readable and machine-readable media.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a hierarchical zone setup 1200 forresource or signaling configuration for transmissions to or from a UE.As previously described, in an embodiment, a set of zone configurationscan be configured for a V2X UE so that different zone configurations canbe used for different resource/signaling configurations. As a result, ahierarchical zone structure consisting of zones of different sizes isrealized by the set of zone configurations. Specifically, the followingRRC information elements (IEs), namely SL-V2X-ZoneConfigList andSL-V2X-ZoneConfig, are configured to implement the desired functions, asshown below.

Structure 1: SL-V2X-ZoneConfigList IE SL-V2X-ZoneConfigList ::= SEQUENCE(SIZE (1.. maxNrofZoneConfigs)) OF SL-V2X-ZoneConfig Structure 2:SL-V2X-ZoneConfigList IE SL-V2X-ZoneConfig ::= SEQUENCE {zoneConfigIndex INTEGER (1.. maxNrofZoneConfigs), zoneLength ENUMERATED{ m5, m10, m20, m50, m100, m200, m500, spare1}, zoneWidth ENUMERATED {m5, m10, m20, m50, m100, m200, m500, spare1}, zoneIdLongiMod INTEGER(1..4), zoneIdLatiMod INTEGER (1..4) }where maxNrofZoneConfigs defines the maximum number of zoneconfigurations to be supported in NR V2X, zoneConfigIndex defines theindex of the current zone configuration, zoneLength (e.g., L), definesthe length of the location zone, zoneWidth (e.g., W) defines the widthof the location zone, zoneldLongiMod (e.g., Nx), defines the range ofthe location zone ID in longitude direction, and zoneIdLatiMod (e.g.,Ny), defines the range of location zone ID in latitude direction.

The zone ID, (e.g., z_ID), is calculated as shown in Equation (1).z _(ID)=mod(y/w,Ny)*Nx+mod(x/L,Nx)  (1)where x defines the location of V2X UE in longitude and y defines thelocation of V2X UE in latitude.

The hierarchical zone setup 1200 includes two different zone sizesincluding a large zone and a small zone. Specifically, a totalcommunication space can be periodically divided into four large zones1202, 1204, 1206, and 1208. Each of the large zones 1202, 1204, 1206,and 1208 is further divided into four small zones. For example, zone1202 includes zones 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4. For example, zone 1204includes zones 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, and 2-4. For example, zone 1206 includeszones 3-1, 3-2, 3-3, and 3-4. For example, zone 1208 includes zones 4-1,4-2, 4-3, and 4-4. As a result, each small zone with index x-y, where xrefers to the large zone index, and y small zone index. For example,such a hierarchical zone structure can be configured by the followingzone set configuration.

Structure 3: Example IEs for Configuring a Zone Set Hierarchical ZoneSetup SL-V2X-ZoneConfigList ::= SEQUENCE (SIZE (1.. 2)) OF SL-V2X-ZoneConfig Zone-Config #1 SL-V2X-ZoneConfig ::= SEQUENCE {zoneConfigIndex INTEGER 1, zoneLength ENUMERATED { m200 }, zoneWidthENUMERATED { m200 }, zoneIdLongiMod INTEGER (2), zoneIdLatiMod INTEGER(2) } Zone-Config #2 SL-V2X-ZoneConfig ::= SEQUENCE { zoneConfigIndexINTEGER 2, zoneLength ENUMERATED { m100 }, zoneWidth ENUMERATED { m100}, zoneIdLongiMod INTEGER (2), zoneIdLatiMod INTEGER (2) }

As shown, Zone-Config #1, which configures a large zone, defines a zoneof 200 m×200 m. As shown, Zone-Config #2, which configures a small zone,a zone of 100 m×100 m. Using this zone set configuration, different zoneconfigurations can be employed for different resource/signalingpurposes. In one embodiment, one zone configuration with a relativelylarge zone size can be used for TX/RX resource configurations so thatneighboring zones use different radio resources to avoid x-zoneinterferences and another zone configuration with a relatively smallerzone size for signaling/determining TX/RX location with finer locationgranularity.

FIG. 9 shows an example of transmitter/receiver distance calculation1300 based on a received transmitter location in SCI. In an embodiment,the transmitter location can be signaled in an SCI by virtue of aconfigured zone or set of zones for SL communications. Specifically, anRRC parameter, namely txLocationZoneSCIConfig, is pre-configured inSL-V2X-PSCCHConfig as shown.

Structure 4: RRC IE for Configuration of a Set of Zones for SLCommunications SL-V2X-PSCCHConfig ::= SEQUENCE { ......txLocationSCIConfig SEQUENCE (SIZE (1.. maxNrofZoneConfigs)) OFSL-V2X-ZoneConfigID ...... } SL-V2X-ZoneConfigID ::= INTEGER (1..maxNrofZoneConfigs)

where SL-V2X-PSCCHConfig defines the RRC IE for all RRC configurationparameters and txLocationSCIConfig defines the SCI field signaling TXlocation. If txLocationSCIConfig is set to a single zone configuration,the SCI field about TX location signals the zone index based on theassociated zone configuration. If txLocationSCIConfig is set to a listof zone configurations, the SCI field including the TX locationindicates (e.g., signals) all zone indices associated with the list ofzone configurations. As a result, the length of SCI field about TXlocation is determined by the setting of txLocationSCIConfig andassociated zone configurations. The TX location is signaled withconfigurable area granularity based on the system needs using thetxLocationSCIConfig parameter.

When a V2X RX UE decodes the received SCI including the TX-locationfield, an RX UE can calculate, based on the location of the RX UE, theTX-RX distance based on the minimum distance between the signaled TXlocation and location(s) of the RX UE. As shown in configuration 1300,four zones are defined for the txLocationZoneConfig parameter, and a UEis located as shown at position 1302. If the received TX location in theSCI indicates x (which can be 1, 2, 3, or 4), the UE shall assume theV2X TX UE is located in the shaded zone 1304 with a signaled zone index,respectively. The TX-RX distance can be calculated as the distancebetween the geometry center of the shaded zone 1304 with the signaledzone index (e.g., 1) and the RX location.

FIGS. 10, 11, and 12 show example processes for location-based SL HARQfeedback transmission by a UE. In some embodiments, the electronicdevice(s), network(s), system(s), chip(s) or component(s), or portionsor implementations thereof, of FIGS. 1-9 , or some other figure, may beconfigured to perform one or more processes, techniques, or methods asdescribed herein, or portions thereof. One such process 1400 is depictedin FIG. 10. The process 1400 may be performed by a network element, aUE, or base station. For a specific embodiment, the process is performedby a network element (e.g., a gNB, node, etc.).

For the process 1400 shown in FIG. 10 , a network element configures(1402) a plurality of zone configurations for a communication zone thatis associated with a UE. In one embodiment, the communication zone isused for SL communications. In one embodiment, at least two of theplurality of zone configurations differ from each other. The networkelement is configured to determine (1404) a hierarchical zone structurefor the configuration zone based on the plurality of zoneconfigurations. The hierarchical zone structure organizes thecommunication zone into a large communication zone and a set of smallercommunication zones. In one embodiment, the set of smaller communicationzones make up the large communication zone. The network elementdetermines (1406) a TX/RX resource pool configuration based on aconfiguration that is associated with large communication zone (e.g., afirst communication zone). The network element can use the resource poolconfiguration to assign (1408) different radio resources to two of thesmaller communications zones (e.g., two second communication zones) thatneighbor each other. Assignment is based on the TX pool configuration orthe RX resource pool configuration. The network element determines(1410) a location of a TX or a RX may be based on one of the zoneconfigurations that is associated with one or more of the smallercommunication zones (e.g., one of the second communication zones). Thenetwork element communicates (1412) the location of the TX/RX. In oneembodiment, the location of the TX/RX is communicated to a UE.

FIG. 11 shows an example process 1500 for location-based SL HARQfeedback transmission by a UE. In process 1500, a device (such as a UE,gNB, base station, network device, etc.) configures (1502) one or morezone configurations for one or more communication zones to be used forSL communications. The process 1500 includes determining (1504) alocation of a UE based on the one or more configurations. The process1506 includes generating (1506) SL control information (SCI) based onthe determined location of the UE. Generally, the SCI comprises thelocation of the UE. The process 1500 includes communicating (1508) theSCI, such as by sending, transmitting, or causing transmission of theSCI.

FIG. 12 shows an example process 1600 for location-based SL HARQfeedback transmission by a UE. The process 1600 includes receiving(1602), by a first UE, SCI that includes a location of a second,different UE. Generally, the first UE determines the location of thesecond UE based on one or more configurations for a communication zoneassociated with the first UE. The process 1600 includes decoding (1605),by the first UE, the SCI based on a location of the first UE. Thelocation of the first UE is based on the one or more configurations forthe communication zone associated with the first UE. The process 1600includes determining (1606), by the first UE, a distance between thefirst UE and the second UE based on the location of the first UE and thelocation of the second UE.

The techniques described herein can be performed by an apparatus that isimplemented in or employed by one or more types of network components,user devices, or both. In some implementations, one or morenon-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions to causean electronic device, upon execution of the instructions by one or moreprocessors of the electronic device, to perform one or more of thedescribed techniques. An apparatus can include one or more processorsand one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that,when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or moreprocessors to perform one or more of the described techniques.

The methods described here may be implemented in software, hardware, ora combination thereof, in different implementations. In addition, theorder of the blocks of the methods may be changed, and various elementsmay be added, reordered, combined, omitted, modified, and the like.Various modifications and changes may be made as would be obvious to aperson skilled in the art having the benefit of this disclosure. Thevarious implementations described here are meant to be illustrative andnot limiting. Many variations, modifications, additions, andimprovements are possible. Accordingly, plural instances may be providedfor components described here as a single instance. Boundaries betweenvarious components, operations and data stores are somewhat arbitrary,and particular operations are illustrated in the context of specificillustrative configurations. Other allocations of functionality areenvisioned and may fall within the scope of claims that follow. Finally,structures and functionality presented as discrete components in theexample configurations may be implemented as a combined structure orcomponent.

The methods described herein can be implemented in circuitry such as oneor more of: integrated circuit, logic circuit, a processor (shared,dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group), anASIC, a field-programmable device (FPD) (e.g., a field-programmable gatearray (FPGA), a programmable logic device (PLD), a complex PLD (CPLD), ahigh-capacity PLD (HCPLD), a structured ASIC, or a programmable SoC),digital signal processors (DSPs), or some combination thereof. Examplesof processors can include Apple A-series processors, Intel® ArchitectureCore™ processors, ARM processors, AMD processors, and Qualcommprocessors. Other types of processors are possible. In someimplementations, the circuitry may execute one or more software orfirmware programs to provide at least some of the describedfunctionality. The term “circuitry” may also refer to a combination ofone or more hardware elements (or a combination of circuits used in anelectrical or electronic system) with the program code used to carry outthe functionality of that program code. In these embodiments, thecombination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to asa particular type of circuitry. Circuitry can also include radiocircuitry such as a transmitter, receiver, or a transceiver.

As described above, some aspects of the subject matter of thisspecification include gathering and use of data available from varioussources to improve services a mobile device can provide to a user. Thepresent disclosure contemplates that in some instances, this gathereddata may identify a particular location or an address based on deviceusage. Such personal information data can include location-based data,addresses, subscriber account identifiers, or other identifyinginformation.

The present disclosure further contemplates that the entitiesresponsible for the collection, analysis, disclosure, transfer, storage,or other use of such personal information data will comply withwell-established privacy policies and/or privacy practices. Inparticular, such entities should implement and consistently use privacypolicies and practices that are generally recognized as meeting orexceeding industry or governmental requirements for maintaining personalinformation data private and secure. For example, personal informationfrom users should be collected for legitimate and reasonable uses of theentity and not shared or sold outside of those legitimate uses. Further,such collection should occur only after receiving the informed consentof the users. Additionally, such entities would take any needed stepsfor safeguarding and securing access to such personal information dataand ensuring that others with access to the personal information dataadhere to their privacy policies and procedures. Further, such entitiescan subject themselves to evaluation by third parties to certify theiradherence to widely accepted privacy policies and practices.

In the case of advertisement delivery services, the present disclosurealso contemplates embodiments in which users selectively block the useof, or access to, personal information data. That is, the presentdisclosure contemplates that hardware and/or software elements can beprovided to prevent or block access to such personal information data.For example, in the case of advertisement delivery services, the presenttechnology can be configured to allow users to select to “opt in” or“opt out” of participation in the collection of personal informationdata during registration for services.

Therefore, although the present disclosure broadly covers use ofpersonal information data to implement one or more various disclosedembodiments, the present disclosure also contemplates that the variousembodiments can also be implemented without the need for accessing suchpersonal information data. That is, the various embodiments of thepresent technology are not rendered inoperable due to the lack of all ora portion of such personal information data. For example, content can beselected and delivered to users by inferring preferences based onnon-personal information data or a bare minimum amount of personalinformation, such as the content being requested by the deviceassociated with a user, other non-personal information available to thecontent delivery services, or publically available information.

The term “user equipment” or “UE” as used herein refers to a device withradio communication capabilities and may describe a remote user ofnetwork resources in a communications network. The term “user equipment”or “UE” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as,client, mobile, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobileunit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station,access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurableradio equipment, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. Furthermore, theterm “user equipment” or “UE” may include any type of wireless/wireddevice or any computing device including a wireless communicationsinterface.

The term “network element” as used herein refers to physical orvirtualized equipment and/or infrastructure used to provide wired orwireless communication network services. The term “network element” maybe considered synonymous to and/or referred to as a networked computer,networking hardware, network equipment, network node, router, switch,hub, bridge, radio network controller, RAN device, RAN node, gateway,server, virtualized VNF, NFVI, and/or the like.

The term “computer system” as used herein refers to any typeinterconnected electronic devices, computer devices, or componentsthereof. Additionally, the term “computer system” and/or “system” mayrefer to various components of a computer that are communicativelycoupled with one another. Furthermore, the term “computer system” and/or“system” may refer to multiple computer devices and/or multiplecomputing systems that are communicatively coupled with one another andconfigured to share computing and/or networking resources.

The term “appliance,” “computer appliance,” or the like, as used hereinrefers to a computer device or computer system with program code (e.g.,software or firmware) that is specifically designed to provide aspecific computing resource. A “virtual appliance” is a virtual machineimage to be implemented by a hypervisor-equipped device that virtualizesor emulates a computer appliance or otherwise is dedicated to provide aspecific computing resource.

The term “resource” as used herein refers to a physical or virtualdevice, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment,and/or a physical or virtual component within a particular device, suchas computer devices, mechanical devices, memory space, processor/CPUtime, processor/CPU usage, processor and accelerator loads, hardwaretime or usage, electrical power, input/output operations, ports ornetwork sockets, channel/link allocation, throughput, memory usage,storage, network, database and applications, workload units, and/or thelike. A “hardware resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/ornetwork resources provided by physical hardware element(s). A“virtualized resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/or networkresources provided by virtualization infrastructure to an application,device, system, etc. The term “network resource” or “communicationresource” may refer to resources that are accessible by computerdevices/systems via a communications network. The term “systemresources” may refer to any kind of shared entities to provide services,and may include computing and/or network resources. System resources maybe considered as a set of coherent functions, network data objects orservices, accessible through a server where such system resources resideon a single host or multiple hosts and are clearly identifiable.

The term “channel” as used herein refers to any transmission medium,either tangible or intangible, which is used to communicate data or adata stream. The term “channel” may be synonymous with and/or equivalentto “communications channel,” “data communications channel,”“transmission channel,” “data transmission channel,” “access channel,”“data access channel,” “link,” “data link,” “carrier,” “radiofrequencycarrier,” and/or any other like term denoting a pathway or mediumthrough which data is communicated. Additionally, the term “link” asused herein refers to a connection between two devices through a RAT forthe purpose of transmitting and receiving information.

The terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like as used hereinrefers to the creation of an instance. An “instance” also refers to aconcrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, duringexecution of program code.

The terms “coupled,” “communicatively coupled,” along with derivativesthereof are used herein. The term “coupled” may mean two or moreelements are in direct physical or electrical contact with one another,may mean that two or more elements indirectly contact each other butstill cooperate or interact with each other, and/or may mean that one ormore other elements are coupled or connected between the elements thatare said to be coupled with each other. The term “directly coupled” maymean that two or more elements are in direct contact with one another.The term “communicatively coupled” may mean that two or more elementsmay be in contact with one another by a means of communication includingthrough a wire or other interconnect connection, through a wirelesscommunication channel or ink, and/or the like.

It is well understood that the use of personally identifiableinformation should follow privacy policies and practices that aregenerally recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or governmentalrequirements for maintaining the privacy of users. In particular,personally identifiable information data should be managed and handledso as to minimize risks of unintentional or unauthorized access or use,and the nature of authorized use should be clearly indicated to users.

The term “information element” refers to a structural element containingone or more fields. The term “field” refers to individual contents of aninformation element, or a data element that contains content.

The term “SMTC” refers to an SSB-based measurement timing configurationconfigured by SSB-MeasurementTimingConfiguration.

The term “SSB” refers to an SS/PBCH block.

The term “a “Primary Cell” refers to the MCG cell, operating on theprimary frequency, in which the UE either performs the initialconnection establishment procedure or initiates the connectionre-establishment procedure.

The term “Primary SCG Cell” refers to the SCG cell in which the UEperforms random access when performing the Reconfiguration with Syncprocedure for DC operation.

The term “Secondary Cell” refers to a cell providing additional radioresources on top of a Special Cell for a UE configured with CA.

The term “Secondary Cell Group” refers to the subset of serving cellscomprising the PSCell and zero or more secondary cells for a UEconfigured with DC.

The term “Serving Cell” refers to the primary cell for a UE inRRC_CONNECTED not configured with CA/DC there is only one serving cellcomprising of the primary cell.

The term “serving cell” or “serving cells” refers to the set of cellscomprising the Special Cell(s) and all secondary cells for a UE inRRC_CONNECTED configured with CA/DC.

The term “Special Cell” refers to the PCell of the MCG or the PSCell ofthe SCG for DC operation; otherwise, the term “Special Cell” refers tothe PCell.

A number of implementations have been described. Nevertheless, it willbe understood that various modifications may be made. Elements of one ormore implementations may be combined, deleted, modified, or supplementedto form further implementations. As yet another example, the logic flowsdepicted in the figures do not require the particular order shown, orsequential order, to achieve desirable results. In addition, other stepsmay be provided, or steps may be eliminated, from the described flows,and other components may be added to, or removed from, the describedsystems. Accordingly, other implementations are within the scope of thefollowing claims.

EXAMPLES

The examples set forth herein are illustrative and not exhaustive.

Example 1 may include a method, comprising configuring orpre-configuring a set of zone configurations to a V2X UE so thatdifferent zone configurations can be used for differentresource/signaling configurations.

Example 2 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein a hierarchical zone structure consisting of zones ofdifferent sizes can be realized by the set of zone configurations.

Example 3 may include the method of example 1, wherein a plurality ofRRC information elements (IEs), namely SL-V2X-ZoneConfigList andSL-V2X-ZoneConfig, can be used for zone set configuration and wherein astructure of each of the plurality of RRC IEs is described previously inStructures 1 and 2.

Example 4 may include the method of example 3 or some other exampleherein, wherein the maxNrofZoneConfigs IE defines a maximum number ofzone configurations to be supported in new radio (NR)vehicle-to-everything (V2X).

Example 5 may include the method of example 3, wherein thezoneConfigIndex IE defines an index of a current zone configuration.

Example 6 may include the method of example 3 or some other exampleherein, wherein the zoneLength IE, e.g., L, defines a length of alocation zone.

Example 7 may include the method of example 3 or some other exampleherein, wherein the zoneWidth IE, e.g., W, defines a width of a locationzone.

Example 8 may include the method of example 3 or some other exampleherein, wherein the zoneldLongiMod IE, e.g., Nx, defines a range of alocation zone identifier (ID) in a longitude direction.

Example 9 may include the method of example 3 or some other exampleherein, wherein the zoneIdLatiMod, e.g., Ny, defines a range of alocation zone identifier (ID) in a latitude direction

Example 10 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein a zone identifier (ID), e.g., z_ID, can be calculateddescribed previously in Equation 1.

Example 11 may include the method of example 2 or some other exampleherein, wherein as an example illustrated by configuration 1200 in FIG.8 , the hierarchical zone setup consists of two different zone sizes,namely, large zone and small zone. Specifically, a total communicationspace can be periodically divided into four large zones, each of whichcan be further divided into four small zones. As a result, each smallzone is identified with using an index x-y, where x refers to a largezone index and y refers to a small zone index.

Example 12 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein different zone configurations in the set of zoneconfigurations can be employed for different resource/signalingpurposes.

Example 13 may include the method of example 12 or some other exampleherein, wherein one zone configuration in the set of zone configurationsthat has a relatively large zone size can be used fortransmitter/receiver (TX/RX) resource configurations so that neighboringzones use different radio resources to avoid x-zone interferences andwherein another zone configuration in the set of zone configurationsthat has a relatively smaller zone size can be used forsignaling/determining TX/RX location with finer location granularity.

Example 14 may include a method for use in sidelink (SL) communications,comprising: signaling, in sidelink (SL) control information (SCI), atransmitter (TX) location by virtue of a configured zone or a configuredset of zones, wherein the configured zone or the set of configured setof zones is configured or pre-configured to a V2X UE so that differentzone configurations can be used for different resource/signalingconfigurations.

Example 15 may include the method of example 14 or some other exampleherein, wherein a radio resource control (RRC) information element (IE),namely txLocationZoneSCIConfig, can be (pre)configured in anSL-V2X-PSCCHConfig IE as described in Structure 4.

Example 16 may include the method of example 15 or some other exampleherein, wherein the SL-V2X-PSCCHConfig IE defines the RRC IE for all RRCconfiguration parameters.

Example 17 may include the method of example 15 or some other exampleherein, wherein the txLocationSCIConfig IE defines an SCI field forsignaling the TX location.

Example 18 may include the method of example 17 or some other exampleherein, wherein, when the txLocationSCIConfig IE is set to a single zoneconfiguration, the SCI field signals a zone index based on an associatedzone configuration.

Example 19 may include the method of example 17 or some other exampleherein, wherein, when the txLocationSCIConfig IE is set to a list ofzone configurations, the SCI field signals all zone indices associatedwith a list of zone configurations such that a length of the SCI fieldis determined by a setting of the txLocationSCIConfig IE and associatedzone configurations.

Example 20 may include the method of example 17 or some other exampleherein, wherein, by virtue of the txLocationSCIConfig IE, the TXlocation can be signaled with configurable area granularity based onsystem needs.

Example 21 may include the method of example 14 or some other exampleherein, when a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) receiver (RX) user equipment(UE) decodes the SCI that includes a TX location, based on a location ofthe V2X RX UE, an RX UE can calculate a transmitter-receiver (TX-RX)distance based on a minimum distance between the TX location and alocation of the RX UE.

Example 22 may include the method of example 15 or some other exampleherein, wherein, as illustrated in FIG. 2 , when four zones are definedfor the txLocationZoneConfig IE and a user equipment (UE) is located ina red dot and when the TX location in the SCI indicates x (which can be1, 2, 3, or 4), the UE assumes a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) transmit(TX) user equipment (UE) is located in a green zone with a signaled zoneindex, respectively.

Example 23 may include the method of example 22 or some other exampleherein, wherein a transmitter-receiver (TX-RX) distance can becalculated as a distance between a geometry center of the green zonewith the signaled zone index and a receiver (RX) location.

Example 24 may include a method for location-based sidelink (SL) hybridautomatic repeat request transmission in a new radio (NR) communicationssystem, comprising: configuring or causing to configure a plurality ofconfigurations for a communication zone associated with a user equipment(UE), wherein the communication zone is used for SL communications andwherein at least two of the plurality of configurations differ from eachother; and determining or causing to determine a hierarchical zonestructure for the communication zone based on the plurality ofconfigurations, wherein the hierarchical zone structure organizes thecommunication zone into a first communication zone and a plurality ofsecond communication zones, wherein the first communication zone islarger than each of the plurality of second communication zones, andwherein the first communication zone comprises the plurality of secondcommunication zones.

Example 25 may include the method of example 24 or some other exampleherein, further comprising: determining or causing to determine atransmitter (TX) resource pool configuration or a receiver (RX) resourcepool configuration based on one of the plurality of configurations thatis associated with the first communication zone.

Example 26 may include the method of example 24 or some other exampleherein, further comprising: assigning or causing to assign differentradio resources to a first one of the plurality of second communicationzones and a second one of the plurality of second communication zonesbased on the TX resource pool configuration or the RX resource poolconfiguration, wherein the first one of the plurality of secondcommunication zones is adjacent the second one of the plurality ofsecond communication zones.

Example 27 may include the method of example 24 or some other exampleherein, further comprising: determining or causing to determine alocation of a transmitter (TX) or a location of a receiver (RX) based onone of the plurality of zone configurations that is associated with oneor more of the plurality of second communication zones.

Example 28 may include the method of example 27 or some other exampleherein, further comprising: communicating or causing to communicate thelocation of the TX or the location of the RX.

Example 29 may include a method for location-based sidelink (SL) hybridautomatic repeat request transmission in a new radio (NR) communicationssystem, comprising: configuring or causing to configure one or moreconfigurations for one or more communication zones to be used for SLcommunications; determining or causing to determine a location of a userequipment (UE) based on the one or more configurations; generating orcausing to generate sidelink (SL) control information (SCI), the SCIcomprising the location of the UE; and communicating or causing tocommunicate the SCI.

Example 30 may include the method of example 29 or some other exampleherein, wherein generating or causing to generate the SCI comprises:configuring or causing to configure a radio resource parameter toinclude information indicative of the location of the UE.

Example 31 may include a method for location-based sidelink (SL) hybridautomatic repeat request transmission in a new radio (NR) communicationssystem, comprising: receiving or causing to receive, by a first userequipment (UE), SL control information (SCI) that includes a location ofa second UE, the location of the second UE determined based on one ormore configurations for a communication zone associated with the firstUE; decoding or causing to decode, by the first UE, the SCI based on alocation of the first UE; and determining or causing to determine, bythe first UE, a distance between the first UE and the second UE based onthe location of the first UE and the location of the second UE.

Example 32 may include the method of example 31 or some other exampleherein, wherein the first UE is a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) receiver(RX) UE and the second UE is a V2X TX UE.

Example 33 may include the method of example 31 or some other exampleherein, wherein determining or causing to determine, by the first UE, adistance between the first UE and the second UE comprises: determiningor causing to determine, by the first UE, a minimum distance between thefirst UE and the second UE.

Example 34 may include an apparatus comprising means to perform one ormore elements of a method described in or related to any of examples1-33, or any other method or process described herein.

Example 35 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readablemedia comprising instructions to cause an electronic device, uponexecution of the instructions by one or more processors of theelectronic device, to perform one or more elements of a method describedin or related to any of examples 1-33, or any other method or processdescribed herein.

Example 36 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, orcircuitry to perform one or more elements of a method described in orrelated to any of examples 1-33, or any other method or processdescribed herein.

Example 37 may include a method, technique, or process as described inor related to any of examples 1-33, or portions or parts thereof.

Example 38 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processorsand one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that,when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or moreprocessors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described inor related to any of examples 1-33, or portions thereof.

Example 39 may include a signal as described in or related to any ofexamples 1-33, or portions or parts thereof.

Example 40 may include a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol dataunit (PDU), or message as described in or related to any of examples1-33, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwise described in thepresent disclosure.

Example 41 may include a signal encoded with data as described in orrelated to any of examples 1-33, or portions or parts thereof, orotherwise described in the present disclosure.

Example 42 may include a signal encoded with a datagram, packet, frame,segment, protocol data unit (PDU), or message as described in or relatedto any of examples 1-33, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwisedescribed in the present disclosure.

Example 43 may include an electromagnetic signal carryingcomputer-readable instructions, wherein execution of thecomputer-readable instructions by one or more processors is to cause theone or more processors to perform the method, techniques, or process asdescribed in or related to any of examples 1-33, or portions thereof.

Example 44 may include a computer program comprising instructions,wherein execution of the program by a processing element is to cause theprocessing element to carry out the method, techniques, or process asdescribed in or related to any of examples 1-33, or portions thereof.

Example 45 may include a signal in a wireless network as shown anddescribed herein.

Example 46 may include a method of communicating in a wireless networkas shown and described herein.

Example 47 may include a system for providing wireless communication asshown and described herein.

Example 48 may include a device for providing wireless communication asshown and described herein.

Example 49 may include an apparatus according to any of any one ofexamples 1-33, wherein the apparatus or any portion thereof isimplemented in or by a user equipment (UE).

Example 50 may include a method according to any of any one of examples1-33, wherein the method or any portion thereof is implemented in or bya user equipment (UE).

Example 51 may include an apparatus according to any of any one ofexamples 1-33, wherein the apparatus or any portion thereof isimplemented in or by a base station (B S).

Example 52 may include a method according to any of any one of examples1-33, wherein the method or any portion thereof is implemented in or bya base station (BS).

Example 53 may include an apparatus according to any of any one ofexamples 1-33, wherein the apparatus or any portion thereof isimplemented in or by a network element.

Any of the above-described examples may be combined with any otherexample (or combination of examples), unless explicitly statedotherwise. The foregoing description of one or more implementationsprovides illustration and description, but is not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the scope of embodiments to the precise formdisclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of theabove teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments.

Any of the above-described examples may be combined with any otherexample (or combination of examples), unless explicitly statedotherwise. The foregoing description of one or more implementationsprovides illustration and description, but is not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the scope of embodiments to the precise formdisclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of theabove teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for performing a sidelink (SL)communication, the method comprising: receiving, by radio resourcecontrol (RRC) signaling, a SL-Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X)-physicalsidelink control channel (PSCCH) configuration information element (IE)that indicates a configuration for a communication zone of a set ofcommunication zones, the configuration specifying a SL controlinformation (SCI) field that indicates a transmitter (TX) locationassociated with the communication zone, and at least one resource orsignaling configuration for a communication of data; generating, basedon the SCI field of the configuration for the communication zone, SCIthat indicates the TX location; and communicating the SCI indicating theTX location.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication zone isconfigured to a V2X UE, and wherein different zone configurationsindicate different resource configurations including the at least oneresource configuration or different signaling configurations includingthe at least one signaling configuration.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein the SL-V2X-PSCCH configuration IE defines an RRC IE for allavailable RRC configuration parameters.
 4. The method of claim 3,wherein the RRC IE defines the SCI field for signaling the TX location.5. The method of claim 3, wherein, when the RRC IE defines a singlecommunication zone, the SCI field indicates a zone index based on theconfiguration for the single communication zone.
 6. The method of claim3, wherein, when the RRC IE defines a plurality of communication zones,the SCI field indicates all zone indices associated with a list of zoneconfigurations, wherein a length of the SCI filed is based on the zoneconfigurations of the list of zone configurations.
 7. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the TX location is indicated with a configurable areagranularity.
 8. The method of claim 1, further comprising: decoding, bya V2X receiver (RX) UE, the SCI indicating the TX location; determininga location of the V2X RX UE; and determining, based on the location andthe TX location, a transmitter-receiver (TX-RX) distance.
 9. The methodof claim 8, wherein the TX-RX distance is a function of a distancebetween a geometry center of the communication zone and the V2X RX UElocation.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration IEfurther indicates a number of the communication zones of the set ofcommunication zones.
 11. A method for location-based sidelink (SL)hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) transmission in a new radio (NR)communications system, the method comprising: receiving, by radioresource control (RRC) signaling, a SL-Vehicle-to-Everything(V2X)-physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH) configurationinformation element (IE) that indicates one or more configurations forone or more communication zones for SL communications, a configurationof the one or more configurations specifying a SL control information(SCI) field that indicates a user equipment (UE) location associatedwith a communication zone of the one or more communication zones;determining one or more configurations for one or more communicationzones for SL communications; determining, based on the SCI field, alocation of the user equipment (UE) based on the one or moreconfigurations; generating SCI specifying the location of the UE; andcommunicating the SCI to another device.
 12. The method of claim 11,wherein generating the SCI comprises: configuring a radio resourceparameter to include information indicative of the location of the UE.13. The method of claim 11, further comprising: receiving, by a firstUE, the SCI that includes a location of a second UE, the second UE beingthe UE and being different than the first UE, wherein the one or moreconfigurations for the one or more communication zones are associatedwith the first UE; decoding, by the first UE, the SCI based on alocation of the first UE; and determining, by the first UE, a distancebetween the first UE and the second UE based on the location of thefirst UE and the location of the second UE.
 14. The method of claim 13,wherein the first UE includes V2X receiver (RX) UE and the second UEincludes a V2X transmitter (TX) UE.
 15. The method of claim 13, whereindetermining, by the first UE, a distance between the first UE and thesecond UE comprises determining by the first UE, a minimum distancebetween the first UE and the second UE.
 16. The method of claim 11,wherein the configuration IE further indicates a number of thecommunication zones of the one or more communication zones.